Russia/Ukraine
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Right, Ukraine hired ISIS to do a terrorist act. They have a web site where you can schedule terrorist attacks on days that are open, but not on Sundays. I suppose Biden ok’ed the plan after secretly meeting with George Soros and the US tax payers paid for it. They were transported by the CIA to the border. It was all a stunt by Biden and Ukraine to make Russians angry enough to be all in on the Ukraine war because that helps Ukraine somehow…
Re: Russia/Ukraine
US, Russia, and ISIS all agree that it was ISIS.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Why is your default going towards being a prick here, that comes up with the biggest strawman you can think of?Nodack wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 9:42 pmRight, Ukraine hired ISIS to do a terrorist act. They have a web site where you can schedule terrorist attacks on days that are open, but not on Sundays. I suppose Biden ok’ed the plan after secretly meeting with George Soros and the US tax payers paid for it. They were transported by the CIA to the border. It was all a stunt by Biden and Ukraine to make Russians angry enough to be all in on the Ukraine war because that helps Ukraine somehow…
I never said that it was Ukraine, and still think that Russia doing this is still on the table.
"When we all think alike, nobody is thinking" - Walter Lippmann
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." ~ Frederick Douglass
Re: Russia/Ukraine
You seemed to imply that the terrorists were heading back to Ukraine and that there was more to this than just ISIS terrorists attacking. I assumed you meant they were working with Ukraine somehow in a secret plot together since Russia was blaming Ukraine at the time and you are pro Russia.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
I didn't imply that they were heading towards Ukraine. According to all the reports, that's exactly the direction they were headed and nearly there. That doesn't mean I thought it was automatically Ukraine that did it or that Ukraine was sympathetic to the terrorists. Maybe that was the terrorists assumption though.Nodack wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 10:52 amYou seemed to imply that the terrorists were heading back to Ukraine and that there was more to this than just ISIS terrorists attacking. I assumed you meant they were working with Ukraine somehow in a secret plot together since Russia was blaming Ukraine at the time and you are pro Russia.
"When we all think alike, nobody is thinking" - Walter Lippmann
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." ~ Frederick Douglass
Re: Russia/Ukraine
NATO is afraid Trump might be elected and they are attempting to Trump proof support for Ukraine because they know Trump has Putin’s back.
Trump-proofing weapons for Ukraine: Allies consider moving arms group into NATO
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/0 ... p-00150151
The U.S. and other Western countries are considering transferring to NATO a U.S.-led multinational group that coordinates the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, one of several new proposals that could help maintain the flow of arms to Kyiv under a second Donald Trump presidency.
“There’s a feeling among, not the whole group but a part of the NATO group, that thinks it is better to institutionalize the process just in case of a Trump re-election,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official. “And that’s something that the U.S. is going to have to get used to hearing, because that is a fear, and a legitimate one.
“Pulling this under NATO kind of isolates it from a Trump presidency, or even from a U.S. that might get distracted by China and can’t keep it going or can’t get his own funding act together,” he added.
If successful, the move would be the latest among a series of actions taken to shore up institutions in anticipation of another Trump presidency.
Trump-proofing weapons for Ukraine: Allies consider moving arms group into NATO
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/0 ... p-00150151
The U.S. and other Western countries are considering transferring to NATO a U.S.-led multinational group that coordinates the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, one of several new proposals that could help maintain the flow of arms to Kyiv under a second Donald Trump presidency.
“There’s a feeling among, not the whole group but a part of the NATO group, that thinks it is better to institutionalize the process just in case of a Trump re-election,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official. “And that’s something that the U.S. is going to have to get used to hearing, because that is a fear, and a legitimate one.
“Pulling this under NATO kind of isolates it from a Trump presidency, or even from a U.S. that might get distracted by China and can’t keep it going or can’t get his own funding act together,” he added.
If successful, the move would be the latest among a series of actions taken to shore up institutions in anticipation of another Trump presidency.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
It is to our great shame that we (Republicans) can't get help to Ukraine.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Zelensky was also mentioning that the US just shot down a whole bunch of missiles fired from Iran at Israel and wondered why we weren’t doing the same for Ukraine.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Republicans Who Like Putin
The Putin-friendly faction of the party is ascendant, while some of his biggest critics are retiring.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/brie ... rlson.html
Large parts of the Republican Party now treat Vladimir Putin as if he were an ideological ally. Putin, by contrast, continues to treat the U.S. as an enemy.
This combination is clearly unusual and sometimes confusing. It does not appear to stem from any compromising information that Putin has about Donald Trump, despite years of such claims from Democrats. Instead, Trump and many other Republicans seem to feel ideological sympathies with Putin’s version of right-wing authoritarian nationalism. They see the world dividing between a liberal left and an illiberal right, with both themselves and Putin — along with Viktor Orban of Hungary and some other world leaders — in the second category.
Whatever the explanation, the situation threatens decades of bipartisan consensus about U.S. national security.
Trump has also avoided criticizing Putin for the mysterious death this month of his most prominent domestic critic, Aleksei Navalny, and has repeatedly praised Putin as a strong and smart leader. In a town hall last year, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war.
Some prominent Republicans, especially in the Senate, are horrified by their party’s pro-Russian drift and are lobbying the House to pass Ukraine aid. “If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said last month.
House Republicans hoping to impeach President Biden have repeatedly promoted information that appears to have been based partly on Russian disinformation. One example: The Republicans cited an F.B.I. document in which an informant accused Biden and his son, Hunter, of taking $5 million bribes from the owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
But federal prosecutors have now accused the informant, Alexander Smirnov, of fabricating the allegation to damage Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Smirnov has told the F.B.I. that people linked to Russian intelligence passed him information about Hunter Biden.
A federal judge has ordered Smirnov detained and called him a flight risk.
Tucker Carlson is not a Republican Party official, but he is an influential Trump supporter, and Carlson has often echoed Russian propaganda. At least once, he went so far as to say he hoped Russia would win its war against Ukraine.
The Putin-friendly faction of the party is ascendant, while some of his biggest critics are retiring.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/brie ... rlson.html
Large parts of the Republican Party now treat Vladimir Putin as if he were an ideological ally. Putin, by contrast, continues to treat the U.S. as an enemy.
This combination is clearly unusual and sometimes confusing. It does not appear to stem from any compromising information that Putin has about Donald Trump, despite years of such claims from Democrats. Instead, Trump and many other Republicans seem to feel ideological sympathies with Putin’s version of right-wing authoritarian nationalism. They see the world dividing between a liberal left and an illiberal right, with both themselves and Putin — along with Viktor Orban of Hungary and some other world leaders — in the second category.
Whatever the explanation, the situation threatens decades of bipartisan consensus about U.S. national security.
Trump has also avoided criticizing Putin for the mysterious death this month of his most prominent domestic critic, Aleksei Navalny, and has repeatedly praised Putin as a strong and smart leader. In a town hall last year, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war.
Some prominent Republicans, especially in the Senate, are horrified by their party’s pro-Russian drift and are lobbying the House to pass Ukraine aid. “If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said last month.
House Republicans hoping to impeach President Biden have repeatedly promoted information that appears to have been based partly on Russian disinformation. One example: The Republicans cited an F.B.I. document in which an informant accused Biden and his son, Hunter, of taking $5 million bribes from the owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.
But federal prosecutors have now accused the informant, Alexander Smirnov, of fabricating the allegation to damage Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. Smirnov has told the F.B.I. that people linked to Russian intelligence passed him information about Hunter Biden.
A federal judge has ordered Smirnov detained and called him a flight risk.
Tucker Carlson is not a Republican Party official, but he is an influential Trump supporter, and Carlson has often echoed Russian propaganda. At least once, he went so far as to say he hoped Russia would win its war against Ukraine.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Putin obviously owns Trump and Trump owns the GOP which means Putin owns the GOP.
Russian Dolls Trump has finally remade Republicans into Putin’s playthings.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article ... ppets.html
In 2017, a Republican-controlled Congress passed a package of sanctions on Russia in retaliation for its interference in the previous year’s election. The bill was approved by overwhelming margins: 419-3 in the House, 98-2 in the Senate. President Trump, the Washington Post later reported, was apoplectic over the vote and contemplated a veto, only to be eventually persuaded that he would look weak when Congress overrode it. Instead, he signed the bill without the normal ceremony while criticizing it as “unconstitutional.”
This is a measure of how deeply isolated and weird Trump’s views on Russia were within his party at the time. Trump has consistently flattered Russia, touted its economic possibilities, and disparaged the alliances arrayed against it. Whatever the basis of his beliefs on the subject — whether from frank admiration of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism, the praise he has received from Russians since the 1980s, or his business dealings — sympathy toward Russia is one of the few policy principles from which he has never wavered. At a closed-door meeting in 2016, Kevin McCarthy told Paul Ryan, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” Dana Rohrabacher was a gadfly in the House mocked for his idiosyncratic Russophilia; Republicans saw Trump the same way.
In 2024, the picture looks very different. The faction of Republicans willing to align themselves with Trump on Russia has swelled to the point where House Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to allow a vote on Ukraine aid. The Ukrainian military is starved of ammunition and retreating, NATO is contemplating its own mortality, and Europe is trembling at the prospect of future Russian aggression, which Trump says he would encourage. But his admiration of Putin no longer renders him strange or suspect within the party. Increasingly, the hawks are cast as oddballs. The metamorphosis Trump wrought through sheer force of personality may ultimately be the most globally significant ramification of his political career.
Trump spent his presidency prying apart the western alliance. He repeated a series of bizarre pro-Moscow claims — insisting, for example, that the NATO treaty committed the U.S. to backing the “very aggressive” Montenegro in a war on Russia — and refused to condemn any of Putin’s crimes. When Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a rare nerve agent in 2020 and every western intelligence agency blamed the obvious suspect, Trump demurred, “I think probably China, at this point, is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than Russia because the things that China is doing are far worse if you take a look at what’s happening with the world.”
But during his time in office and after, Trump managed to create, from the grassroots up, a Republican constituency for Russia-friendly policy. The GOP base processes every political event as a contest of tribal loyalty. Once Trump had signaled that friendliness to Russia was a form of fealty to himself, his voters began demanding that their elected leaders and media personalities follow suit.
Russian Dolls Trump has finally remade Republicans into Putin’s playthings.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article ... ppets.html
In 2017, a Republican-controlled Congress passed a package of sanctions on Russia in retaliation for its interference in the previous year’s election. The bill was approved by overwhelming margins: 419-3 in the House, 98-2 in the Senate. President Trump, the Washington Post later reported, was apoplectic over the vote and contemplated a veto, only to be eventually persuaded that he would look weak when Congress overrode it. Instead, he signed the bill without the normal ceremony while criticizing it as “unconstitutional.”
This is a measure of how deeply isolated and weird Trump’s views on Russia were within his party at the time. Trump has consistently flattered Russia, touted its economic possibilities, and disparaged the alliances arrayed against it. Whatever the basis of his beliefs on the subject — whether from frank admiration of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism, the praise he has received from Russians since the 1980s, or his business dealings — sympathy toward Russia is one of the few policy principles from which he has never wavered. At a closed-door meeting in 2016, Kevin McCarthy told Paul Ryan, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” Dana Rohrabacher was a gadfly in the House mocked for his idiosyncratic Russophilia; Republicans saw Trump the same way.
In 2024, the picture looks very different. The faction of Republicans willing to align themselves with Trump on Russia has swelled to the point where House Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to allow a vote on Ukraine aid. The Ukrainian military is starved of ammunition and retreating, NATO is contemplating its own mortality, and Europe is trembling at the prospect of future Russian aggression, which Trump says he would encourage. But his admiration of Putin no longer renders him strange or suspect within the party. Increasingly, the hawks are cast as oddballs. The metamorphosis Trump wrought through sheer force of personality may ultimately be the most globally significant ramification of his political career.
Trump spent his presidency prying apart the western alliance. He repeated a series of bizarre pro-Moscow claims — insisting, for example, that the NATO treaty committed the U.S. to backing the “very aggressive” Montenegro in a war on Russia — and refused to condemn any of Putin’s crimes. When Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a rare nerve agent in 2020 and every western intelligence agency blamed the obvious suspect, Trump demurred, “I think probably China, at this point, is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than Russia because the things that China is doing are far worse if you take a look at what’s happening with the world.”
But during his time in office and after, Trump managed to create, from the grassroots up, a Republican constituency for Russia-friendly policy. The GOP base processes every political event as a contest of tribal loyalty. Once Trump had signaled that friendliness to Russia was a form of fealty to himself, his voters began demanding that their elected leaders and media personalities follow suit.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Clyburn gives GOP a new nickname: ‘Groupies of Putin’
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... -of-putin/
House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) went after Republicans Saturday, branding the GOP with a new nickname: “Groupies of Putin.”
Clyburn, who announced he would step down from leadership in 2024, argued Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his other GOP colleagues have only been doing the business of Russian President Vladimir Putin “at the behest of the former president.”
The Republicans Who Sold Their Souls to Vladimir Putin
The Russian strongman has yet to topple Ukraine, but he’s conquered the GOP.
https://newrepublic.com/article/179393/ ... 2024-shift
Letter: Trump Republicans support Putin
https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/mar ... ort-putin/
Russian spies tried to recruit the GOP congressman who House GOP leaders 'joked' was on Putin's payroll
https://theweek.com/speedreads/700087/r ... ns-payroll
Late Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that back in June 2016, House Republicans were discussing the hack of the Democratic National Committee (WikiLeaks had not yet begun to publish the stolen emails), and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested that "the Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp [opposition] research that they had on Trump," and when House Speaker Paul Ryan asked who they "delivered" that information to, McCarthy replied: "There's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump. Swear to God."
After the House GOP leaders denied that the conversation ever took place, The Washington Post said there was audio of the conversation, and McCarthy called the comments a "bad attempt at a joke," pointing to laughter in the room. But it turns out that Russian spies actually did try to recruit Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), one of Moscow's staunchest defenders and President Trump's loyalist allies in Washington, The New York Times reported Friday.
Meet the pro-Putin Republicans and conservatives
Their thoughts on Russia and Ukraine, in their own words
https://accountability.gop/ukraine-quotes/
https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... -of-putin/
House Minority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) went after Republicans Saturday, branding the GOP with a new nickname: “Groupies of Putin.”
Clyburn, who announced he would step down from leadership in 2024, argued Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his other GOP colleagues have only been doing the business of Russian President Vladimir Putin “at the behest of the former president.”
The Republicans Who Sold Their Souls to Vladimir Putin
The Russian strongman has yet to topple Ukraine, but he’s conquered the GOP.
https://newrepublic.com/article/179393/ ... 2024-shift
Letter: Trump Republicans support Putin
https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/mar ... ort-putin/
Russian spies tried to recruit the GOP congressman who House GOP leaders 'joked' was on Putin's payroll
https://theweek.com/speedreads/700087/r ... ns-payroll
Late Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that back in June 2016, House Republicans were discussing the hack of the Democratic National Committee (WikiLeaks had not yet begun to publish the stolen emails), and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested that "the Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp [opposition] research that they had on Trump," and when House Speaker Paul Ryan asked who they "delivered" that information to, McCarthy replied: "There's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump. Swear to God."
After the House GOP leaders denied that the conversation ever took place, The Washington Post said there was audio of the conversation, and McCarthy called the comments a "bad attempt at a joke," pointing to laughter in the room. But it turns out that Russian spies actually did try to recruit Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), one of Moscow's staunchest defenders and President Trump's loyalist allies in Washington, The New York Times reported Friday.
Meet the pro-Putin Republicans and conservatives
Their thoughts on Russia and Ukraine, in their own words
https://accountability.gop/ukraine-quotes/
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Hooray! The US House finally passes its Ukraine aid bill. The margin wasn't even close, showing how much MAGA extremists have been blocking a clear majority from making law.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
I’m wonder is Greene still gets paid by Putin for failing. 
Re: Russia/Ukraine
I still can't believe Republicans passed up essentially this same aid bill PLUS a huge increase in border security, only to later pass the foreign aid with nothing else. Duhhhh. Great negotiating guys!
Re: Russia/Ukraine
Some Republicans still see Putin as an adversary and want to stop his aggression. Some Republicans repeat whatever Putin says and don’t consider Putin an adversary. Putin obviously didn’t hire enough Republicans to get the job done and the pro Russian Maga was shut down. Trump is probably upset. He has his own legal problems. Marjorie Greene on the cover of the Republican NY Post depicted as a Russian is priceless.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
MTG is the worst of American politicians…in reality I just wouldn’t vote, but if gun to my head I had to pick between her and Trump I’d take Trump
Re: Russia/Ukraine
It's incredible how many politicians don't know how politics work. Incredible.
Jones and Vogel gotta go.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
This is a little annoying, since we talked about why they couldn't pass that idiotic bill in the past.
"When we all think alike, nobody is thinking" - Walter Lippmann
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." ~ Frederick Douglass
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." ~ Frederick Douglass
Re: Russia/Ukraine
I remember you describing your objections to the bill. But it did contain a ton of things Republicans say they've been wanting for the border for years. I understand that it had some provisions in it that you didn't love, but that is the heart of compromise. Overall I think it was a great deal for them and that they were foolish to pass it up.
Re: Russia/Ukraine
They didn’t pass on it until Trump told them to.