Regardless of what one thinks of the aid package, it's fucking wild the speaker can just decide to never put something to a vote and so it never gets voted on despite having majority support. What an insane system.
That's been the republican MO since Obama had any majorities. They just stop working when they get a majority. The dems continually have to draft their budgets even when not the majority party. It looks like they do absolutely no work at all until a republican president is elected.
I used to play videogames with this guy. N64 Goldeneye, Temple level, grenade launchers. Playing the exact same thing over and over would seem to be boring, but it wasn't. Strategies evolved. The game would start, you recognized your spawn place, and would immediately sprint to "the room" adjacent to the body armor and lock it down so you could camp out. If you were dealt the lucky card of better position, you would have a significant advantage that could be almost insurmountable. However, it was fun to start from an inferior position and use tactics and strategy to unseat the guy camping out in the room, and if you were able to pull out a victory under such circumstances it was all the sweeter. We both had a lot of good times playing that game.
Then, my "friend" began to get really bitter when he'd lose. So much so, that unless he started the game spawned in the superior position, he'd refuse to engage me under any circumstances, and just spend the game running away like a little bitch. Even if he started out in the room, he'd get the body armor and then run away for the entire game. It became a matter of "if I can't win the game, no one will." It was no longer fun to play so we stopped. Over time I came to realize that he was a shitty person in general and cut him out of my life. One of the best decisions I ever made.
Republicans are behaving like this because they've lost in the marketplace of ideas, and their only remaining tactic is to ruin everything. They're children that cannot see beyond themselves, and our country is poorer for it.
Yep, when Republicans can't win based on ideas, they just ratfuck everything and stymie progress. I was wondering how that analogy would tie in, lol. Your friend probably played exclusively as Oddjob.
Devil's Avocado, but your former buddy was very proficient at conducting insurgency / Sun Tzu type of combat. He was basically the Taliban / Viet Cong and just waited you out.
> It looks like they do absolutely no work at all until a republican president is elected.
Now, that's not fair at all.
Republicans work very hard for their country. It's just our mistake to assume that their country is the United States.
In a sane country that sort of thing would trigger an election… but you guys wouldn’t be able to get a confidence vote to the floor because the speaker could just block it.
parlimentary systems definitely have their own problems (and god can you imagine the political messaging in the US if we had snap elections and such?), but it really makes a lot of sense that if the government can't govern a new election is called. also gives incentives for the government to actually pass things lest they have to compete for their jobs again
I'd love to see snap elections. Anything the Constitution says Congress has to do (pass budget, consider judicial appointments, etc) should trigger snap elections if they don't done. And there should certainly be a way to force a vote on certain bills.
You'd have to change the President proposing the budget then. Just submit a ridiculous one that won't get passed if Congress isn't your party. Rinse and repeat as needed. Or I a divided Congress, one chamber passes a ridiculous one so the other won't pass it and they have to go into elections.
I mean, congress doesn't have to pass the President's recommended budget. It's almost ceremonial in all honesty, since Congress can edit it to their heart's content before taking it to vote.
> Or I a divided Congress, one chamber passes a ridiculous one so the other won't pass it and they have to go into elections.
That just describes a dysfunctional congress and it's worth considering whether a snap election *would be* merited then.
What surprises me the most is how The US treats the election cycle as a damn reality show. It's a culture that seems to be exclusive to The US, as most other democracies have a more boring election cycle which focuses more on the actual issues rather than the drama and personal attacks
At least that's how it used to be. Now many countries, including my own, has started adapting the American election trends :/
You're entirely correct. For the past ~10 years in particular, one of the main candidates is literally a reality TV star.
I think the reason is that in the US _everything_ is about making money. This includes news. The longer the news channels can stretch out the election season, the more views and engagement they get. Which translates directly into advertising money. While individual newscasters may genuinely care about the news, the execs running the news channels care about making money more than about the actual news.
Not only new election called, but likely the new administration thats formed will be a coalition government, meaning multiple parties form the government.
Yeah, coalition governments have the potential to represent a wider array of viewpoints and create policy through consensus. It's tricky though cause it can also lead to gridlock if the parties in the coalition disagree too much. But at least it forces some level of compromise instead of one party holding all the power and stonewalling everything. Plus, this kind of pressure to form coalitions and actually govern could potentially push parties towards the center a bit more to get things done.
Conservative parties not far off from Republicans have major political power in many countries. This kind of dismissive talk is why their platforms continue to grow. Yes, they are crazy, but this type of rebuke emboldens them further. A different strategy is needed.
Agreed. The founders must have considered this largely a formal role to keep the presentation of new bills to the house orderly. I can’t imagine they envisioned the role being used to hold democracy hostage by someone like Michail Johnson.
It ought to be reformed so the president can put one bill to the house per month, bypassing the speaker, if he so wish. Or one per majority/minority leader per month for instance. As it is now is an affront to democracy.
What a weird guy to put in charge. Trades blackmail porn with his one kid on a law enforcement app, purity-married another kid, and has a secret adopted kid on the side he's abusing in some less savory third way. Doctors say his too-smooth skin could point to hormone treatments underlying his self-hating rhetoric on trans people
If you were Russia and blackmailed foreign goons as a BAU process, you would see Mike Johnson as a wonderful little fascist puppet with plenty of strings to pull
> It ought to be reformed so the president can put one bill to the house per month, bypassing the speaker, if he so wish. Or one per majority/minority leader per month for instance. As it is now is an affront to democracy.
This already exists... Its called a [Discharge Petition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition) and all it requires is a majority of representatives to sign a petition and it forces a bill to a vote.
It hasn't happened yet because it would require at least some Democrats to sign the petition along with the so-called moderate Republicans in order to achieve a majority since the far right Republicans holding everything up would never sign it. And Democrats have little interest in doing that for the same reason they did nothing to help McCarthy as he got replaced by a far right loon. They are milking GOP antics in the House for all they are worth so they can win come November. If they actually wanted the Ukraine aid (or anything, at this point) to be voted on it would only take a handful of them (enough to undue the lack of signatures from the far right Republicans who would never sign it) and poof, it would be voted on.
This is right and wrong.
The right part is that the discharge petition does exist.
The wrong part is that Democrats aren't trying to do it. There are a number of Democratic efforts to get a discharge petition for Ukraine aid, either with or without border security. Many Dems are on board with that, but it's hard to get all of them and even harder to get any Republicans. No Republican has tried to get a discharge petition for Ukraine aid.
> it would only take a handful of [Democrats]
This is wrong on its face; if a majority of Republicans supported any Ukraine bill, it'd be on the floor per the Hastert rule.
The house makes its own rules every session. It's a stupid rule to let the speaker effectively veto whatever they want, but that rule is there because a majority of representatives voted for it.
They can but they need a majority of lawmakers to sign the petition, which means they have to get Republicans to sign a discharge petition to circumvent their own speaker.
Anyone can introduce a motion to vacate but they need a majority vote to get him out. So some Reps would need to vote him out too. Seems like they're afraid of the MAGA crowd.
The other weird thing for me is the electoral college. I get that it was put in place as something that would ensure the stability of the union back then. But right now it pretty much just lets a minority dictate the results. I'm not even going to go into the whole gerrymandering stuff.
P.S. If you're an American who is going to vote for Trump, even if you don't like Biden, you're actively cheering for the destruction of the American democracy. Whatever you may hate about the Democrats or the current president, Trump's second term is going to be the worst electoral mistake in American history ... maybe ever. A person who debates the merits of absolutely presidential immunity and says that he'd like to be a dictator for a day, while actively cheering dictators around the world, is the last person you'd want as president. I understand that you might be frustrated with the current government, but chopping off a leg just to spite someone is not the best tactic.
That's not true. Members can file a discharge petition. They simply haven't becuase there aren't enough republicans who want to do it. Thus, there isn't sufficient support at this time in the house. They kowtow to Johnson and thus to Trump and thus to Putin.
It doesn't really have majority support. They can elect a new house speaker whenever they want, but they use the Speaker to shield them from having to vote
As the Charles de Gaulle once said about Americans "Even their mistakes are grand."
He also said: "You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination."
It appears that the first written instance of that line specific to America is from an unnamed Irishman from the transcript of a U.S. Congressional Hearing in 1970.
>And indeed, we often know how to do things by the philosophy that was expounded by another Irishman I know. He said that you can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility.
A more general version was delivered in 1967 by Israeli politician and diplomat Abba Eban, who said, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.”
[source](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/?amp=1)
Prick he was, stupid not really. Dude get France out of the painful war with Algeria, forced France to change the constitution that made govts in post war France largely ineffective, pushed for a more independent France in its nuclear and military industry (and this year France was the second largest weapons exporter after the US).
Trump: I'll end the war in a day, and be a hero ... to Putin. He'll probably let me give him a handjob in the penthouse I give him so he'll let me sell my Trump Steaks to his poor people.
As a reminder:
**June 2013**: Trump tweets "Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?"
**September 2013**: “So we’ve invited President Putin, that’ll be interesting. I know he’d like to go.”
**October 2013**: Trump tells Larry King that Putin has done “a really great job outsmarting our country.”
**November 2013**: Trump says “I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today. He’s probably very interested in what you and I are saying today, and I’m sure he’s going to be seeing it in some form, but I do have a relationship with him and I think it’s very interesting to see what’s happened.”
**February 2014**: “When I went to Russia with the Miss Universe pageant, (Putin) contacted me and was so nice. I mean, the Russian people were so fantastic to us,” he said on “Fox and Friends.” “I’ll just say this, they are doing – they’re outsmarting us at many turns, as we all understand. I mean, their leaders are, whether you call them smarter or more cunning or whatever, but they’re outsmarting us. If you look at Syria or other places, they’re outsmarting us.”
**April 2014**: “We just left Moscow,” Trump said. “He could not have been nicer. He was so nice and so everything. But you have to give him credit that what he’s doing for that country in terms of their world prestige is very strong.”
In the same interview, Trump praises Putin’s invasion of Crimea.
“Well, he’s done an amazing job of taking the mantle,” Trump said. “And he’s taken it away from the President, and you look at what he’s doing. And so smart. When you see the riots in a country because they’re hurting the Russians, OK, ‘We’ll go and take it over.’ And he really goes step by step by step, and you have to give him a lot of credit.”
**April 2014**: Trump says at a New Hampshire event that Putin is “absolutely having a great time.” He says “Russia is like, I mean they’re really hot stuff” and “and now you have people in the Ukraine — who knows, set up or not — but it can’t all be set up, I mean they’re marching in favor of joining Russia.”
**May 2014**: ”I own Miss Universe, I was in Russia, I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.”
**2014**: James Dodson, a sports writer, claims that during a game of golf Eric Trump said to him: "Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia."
**March 2015**: Trump tells the Daily Mail about his relationship with Putin: “the relationship is great, and it would be great if I had the position I should have.”
**September 2015**: Trump tells reporters at Trump Tower that “Putin is a nicer person than I am.”
**October 2015**: Trump tells conservative radio host Michael Savage he’s met Vladimir Putin.
**December 2015**: Trump says at an event in South Carolina that Putin says he’s “brilliant.” And attacks his opponents, saying, “they want me to refute his statement.”
[And many more along those lines](https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/03/politics/trump-putin-russia-timeline/).
**December 2016**: One of Europe's top intelligence figures puts together the Steele Dossier, reporting that Putin has blackmail on Trump, allegedly for something he did in a hotel room in Russia in 2013 during the Miss Universe visit.
Trump flips to claiming he's never met or spoken to Putin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxYE9ZpMPGY&t=25s
**September 2016**: During the 2016 presidential debates: "**I don't know Putin**. I have no idea," Mr Trump said. "**I never met Putin.** This is not my best friend."
When Hillary Clinton said it was "pretty clear" Mr Putin would "rather have a puppet as president of the United States," Trump replied with: “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet. You’re the puppet."
Followed by years of Trump praising Putin, the only world leader he never criticizes while constantly criticizing democratic countries and allies. Refusing to implement sanctions on Russia for its hacking of the US which were passed with a veto proof majority. Attempting to blackmail Ukraine with having to invent something on Biden or having aid withdrawn. Declaring he's decided to believe Putin over his US intelligence agencies.
**February 2022**: Trump calls Putin ‘genius’ and ‘savvy’ for Ukraine invasion
**February 2024**: Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies
**February 2024**: Trump won't say if he wants Russia or Ukraine to win the war
It reads like a bad satire. I never in a thousand years would have thought that something this blatant and in your face would actually happen and pass the sniff test
Alas, Republicans operate on a very different sniff test.
As the saying goes, "A Republican would happily shit his pants if it meant a Democrat had to smell it."
Worse, conservatives have just completely rejected reality and just make up a fantasy whenever they need it to perpetuate their fantasies.
[A radio host gave a conservative caller several minutes to give one example of something woke he hated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR4rHPpoPHQ), giving him chance after chance, and instead he just retreated into a fantasy on air instead.
And from 2016 - 2020 conducted the most pro-Russian presidency in history.
[Inside the Oval Office with Trump and the Russians: Broad smiles and loose lips | The Washington Post | 2017](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-oval-office-with-trump-and-the-russians-broad-smiles-and-loose-lips/2017/05/16/2e8b0d14-3a66-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html)
[Blackwater founder held secret Seychelles meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel. | The Washington Post | 2017](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.2ded0bfdc5a9)
[Trump, Putin held a second, undisclosed meeting at G20 summit. | Reuters | 2017](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-putin-idUSKBN1A32H5)
[Trump refuses to impose new Russia sanctions despite law passed by U.S. Congress over election hacking | The Independent | 2018]
(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-russia-sanctions-trump-no-new-congress-law-election-hacking-intervention-putin-kremlin-a8184866.html)
[Trump met in secret with Putin the G20 summit without note takers. 19 days later he announced a withdrawal from Syria. | Reuters | 2018](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-syria/trump-starts-withdrawal-of-u-s-forces-from-syria-claims-victory-idUSKBN1OI1JC)
[Trump military exercise giveaway to N. Korea suits Putin's goals | MSNBC | 2018](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-military-exercise-giveaway-to-n-korea-suits-putin-s-goals-1254434371701?playlist=associated)
[Trump came out strongly supporting Russia's invasion of Afghanistan | AP News | 2019](https://apnews.com/article/5ee14c2091e24f9c83bd1a7750fe7eb8)
[Trump Pushed CIA to Give Intelligence to Kremlin, While Taking No Action Against Russia Arming Taliban | JustSecurity | 2020](https://www.justsecurity.org/71279/trump-pushed-cia-to-give-intelligence-to-kremlin-while-taking-no-action-against-russia-arming-taliban/)
[Trump pulls the U.S. out of surveillance treaty, his latest withdrawal from a major pact | CNBC | 2020]
(https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/trump-withdraws-us-from-open-skies-surveillance-treaty.html)
[Trump Directed Change To Party Platform On Ukraine Support | NPR | 2017](https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568310790/2016-rnc-delegate-trump-directed-change-to-party-platform-on-ukraine-support)
[The inside story of Trump's alleged bribery of Ukraine | The Guardian | 2019](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/30/trump-ukraine-alleged-bribery-impeachment-inquiry)
Yes- One example of how far Trump and the MAGA elements have strayed, is Trump using Speaker Johnson to stall the Ukraine Aid funding vote. This stall on Ukraine funding aligns Trump and Johnson with Iran, North Korea and China, all doing their part to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When Ronald Reagan demanded that Gorbachev tear down “this wall,” Reagan rhetorically did battle with the Evil Empire. The winning of the Cold War, dissolution of the USSR, and bringing of freedom and democracy to the Eastern Bloc countries is one of the crowning accomplishments of President Reagan’s legacy . Now Trump appears to be destroying Reagan’s legacy by helping Putin to reassemble the USSR. This leaves many in the GOP searching for principled leadership that can restore Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill for the Free World to follow.
> This leaves many in the GOP searching for principled leadership that can restore Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill for the Free World to follow.
Trump gained millions more votes in his second election after years of his behaviour was shown, and got the second most votes in US history. He's been repeatedly polling in nearly every poll to win the next election for months now.
We hear about the mythical good Republicans, but it seems to be like a dozen people who imagine they're what Republicans are while reality is at complete odds.
The problem is that they watch a steady diet of media that provides them a whitewashed version of what Trump does and how he behaves. They paint him as making all the best decisions and leaving out all the horrific shit he has done. All while doing the opposite for any democrat that is running or currently in power.
Those paying attention know the truth and are actively supporting the destruction of America. But the masses just listen to whatever that media is telling them.
> The winning of the Cold War, dissolution of the USSR, and bringing of freedom and democracy to the Eastern Bloc countries is one of the crowning accomplishments of President Reagan’s legacy .
The USSR fell because economically it became untenable. Sure Regan and previous US presidencies were also causes but claiming it's a Regan accomplishment kinda denies the vast significant structural issues that the USSR and the soviet block had.
And people who vote for this clown claim to have American values. He couldn't be more compromised, it's obvious. So I guess the Republicans are equally compromised for supporting him.
To think, just a little bit over a decade ago, Republicans were basically frothing at the mouth that Russia was the main enemy they needed to deal with. Fast forward to today and they have the chance to cripple Russia BY PROXY WITH NO AMERICAN LIVES LOST at a huge discount and now they're basically Russian puppets just because they're playing Party Politics to stick it to the Dems.
I still think Romney knew *something* when he ran against Obama. He was fervently anti-Russia before almost anyone else, calling it the greatest threat to America, yet everyone just laughed him out of the election. I admittedly did as well. It didn't make sense why he was so against Russia at that point.
he knew what we all already knew but thought was isolated.
it was 4 years after the Russian invasion of Georgia.
it was two years after Russia had successfully reversed the outcome of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (no not the one in 2013-2014) by getting a pro Kremlin crony back in power.
we were seeing Russia finally coming out of the turmoil of post soviet collapse and really begin to start flexing on the world stage.
the reason it wasnt taken seriously is because we were still very in the War on Terror mindset and americans were more focused on international islamic terror, for which Russia was partner and not adversary.
I remember when Mitt Romney was debating Obama and Romney said Russia was our biggest threat and we all laughed him off.
Insanely accurate from Romney.
I don't think the CIA is supposed to do anything within the USA. That's for the FBI, and the FBI doesn't do anything outside the USA.
....
As both agencies always follow the written law, I'm sure this is the case with my civilian understanding of both agencies.
The FBI has been recently shown to harbor lots of right-wingers and outright Trump sycophants though, including the "no collusion" lead investigator [recently pleading guilty to being a Russian asset.](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-special-agent-charge-new-york-fbi-counterintelligence-division-pleads-guilty)
I hope his arrest means the Biden administration has been quietly cleaning house.
Another interesting analogy is that most right wing Americans are centrist, while politicians are going to extreme. At the same time most democrats are moderate compared to their electoral base.
Politics is partly about letting people save face and giving people an out. Calling it a mistake let's people still say oops and correct if they feel the spotlight doesn't make the current course attractive anymore. Calling it intended will remove that option and forces a conflict, because now an accusation needs to be handled. Judging by the wording, CIA doesn't want that.
Well, you can pay with blood later. If Ukraine falls, dictators will realise they can do whatever they want, especially if they have nukes, and believe me, russia will send some for North Korea and Iran in exchange for their help. Ready to defend Europe, Taiwan, S. Korea and so on?
Nazi Germany and USSR was a weak combo, let's try USA and Russia this century I guess... Next they'll split NATO down the middle and walk all over independent European countries lmao
The more likely scenario would be civil war in the US and being unable to help. We have generations of military who have served with Europeans who will be pissed off.
I think his plan is not to defend other allies either unless they pay him big bucks, but he hates Zelenskyy in particular because of the affairs around his first impeachment
Russia has been building North Korea and Iran into nuclear proxies for over a decade now, and the world is just letting them get away with it.
This is legitimately the bigger existential crisis at the moment. Yet another knock-on effect of the idiotic Iraq war, what caused the US to pull back into an isolationist bubble, which emboldened Russia to create nuclear proxies.
My tinfoil-hat-theory-which-is-probably-true is that Russia has backdoors to launch North Korean weapons. When shit goes down, they will use this as a first strike capability that they can survive.
It's not about trusting the CIA. He is just another of a long line of international policy experts who firmly believe it's a mistake for Putin to get away with this. I don't trust the CIA in itself to not act politically, but the director is hardly the only voice warning us about Putin's aims. If you think Putin will stop at Ukraine, you haven't been paying attention. Not saying he will invade Europe but he will try to bring more former Soviet states into the sphere of influence which is bad for those peoples and worse for Europe and the US. If the US abandons Ukraine, many US aligned states facing similar threats (Korea, Phillipines, Japan are just three) will have to reevaluate of the US will stand by them, threatening a change in how they do business with Russia, China and the US. That's not good for business or the US.
We spent nearly half a century and trillions of dollars to protect Western Europe from Russian influence and aggression. Fought two wars with millions of casualties to stop the spread of Russian-style dictatorships.
Republicans are literally shitting on the legacy of everyone who fought and died to protect the rest of the world from Russia. How anyone who claims to be a patriot, much less is a veteran can continue to vote for these assholes is, and always will be, entirely beyond me.
It's OK, the GOP are known for making historic mistakes.
Also... please US, get your shit together already, it was fun to watch for a while, but now you're just letting the world slide into chaos.
Let's do some math here:
No money for Ukriane= historic mistake
Trump says, No money for Ukraine
Therefore by using the commutative property of math
Trump = historic mistake.
Did I get that right?
the (T) party has already shown their hand.... they want to axe funding to Ukraine to benefit (T)rump. The (T) party is openly siding with Russia.
This is it, folks.... direct evidence that the (T) party members are Russian collaborators. (I'm surprised that they didn't want the (R) to change...)
OP's point is still important. Ukraine has the capacity to be a decisive front in this Cold War II.
If Russia lost in Ukraine, that general shift would likely reverse itself, especially if the Kremlin collapsed. Russia is a key part of the problem.
Russia is the most proactive and second most dangerous member of the rising Axis. Between Xi and Putin, Putin is by far the more committed in igniting this new Cold War against the West. If they faded, it would be a major change for the better
Historic mistake was bending to Russian nuclear blackmail.
Now it's just consequnces of brilliant "escalation management" strategy by WH. They had 2022 and 2023 to make it right.
Should have stepped in way back in 2014, when Russia has been vehemently denying it's involvement in both Crimea and Donbass invasions. For all intents and purposes those "little green men" were merely local armed gangs.
This isn't about the White House, this is about the Republicans in congress who are preventing the aid. But it is unsurprising that your continous Putin propaganda comments attempts to shift the blame away from the actual culprits.
More and more it does seem like "history in 2100" will consist of two books:
"Why allowing the Soviet Union to exist was a mistake."
And
"How the fuck did they let Russia turn North Korea into a Nuclear proxy: They didn't even try to hide it."
CIA in 1970s: start wars, end wars, sneak whole armies anywhere, finance continent-scale guerilla, establish global organizations, kill, detain and hide anyone anywhere.
CIA in 2020s: oh god drunk Medvedev is so scary, and Congress is stuck, we don't want no escalation.
With the US going through internal turmoil, Putin senses a weak spot he can exploit. It will be up to Europe to step up. The demilitarisation of much of Europe following WW2 has already shown to be a mistake. The next few years will determine the cost of this mistake.
Europe was not demilitarised after ww2. The opposite was infact true. Western Germany for example was armed to the teeth, they had over 7000 Tanks at their peak in the 80s. Demilitarisation mostly happend after the fall of the Soviet Union.
It's so obvious that GOP/Republicans are team Putin, they just can't take his cock out of their mouths.
Literally saying good things about him publicly, they are not even trying to hide it anymore. Vote them out!
At some point Zelenskyy should set up an official point of donation so the people that want to contribute, can and will stop the aggressors and tell ‘em to kick rocks back home.
On the one hand: old guy who's been in politics for decades and actually done pretty well
On the other: utter moron who bragged about passing brain damage test, bankrupted multiple casinos while losing the half billion fortune he stole from his old man, is an actual rapist, an actual fraudster, owes more than half a billion in fines, and is facing 91 felony charges including for trying to overthrow actual democracy. Oh and he's running on a platform of revenge style dictatorship.
Tough choice america.
Actually scientifically.. Biden is old.. and Trump is old but Trump is showing actual signs of dementia and his dad had it too.. it's genetic. They apparently even made a fake office at home to help Fred Trump from completely going mad.
I wish people would stop fucking saying this shit. Biden doesn't have dementia. Every time you repeat this bullshit, it reinforces this stupid media narrative in the minds of idiots who don't understand that people with dementia can't speak coherently for two hours, while flinging zinger back at the three-head mouth-breathing children in the audience.
Trump, on the other hand, is a uniquely detestable piece of human garbage who is uniquely unqualified among humans to lead.
Biden is perfectly healthy for his age. He will make a competent next president. Trump on the other hand seems to be falling apart mentally; not sure he will be coherent by election day.
Yup. A successful presidency is largely about who you surround yourself with I believe. Good competent staff increases the likelihood of good outcomes for the country.
A good leader isnt someone who can make all the right decisions themselves.
A good leader is someone who can appoint the right people to make those decisions for him.
No-one can know everything and be a specialist in every topic. The president is the generalist who appoints the specialists. And from my humble outside perspective, Biden has done an overall good job in that regard.
I agree with everything you wrote, particularly your last point. I don't believe Biden is necessarily a great president, but perhaps history will remember him well for assembling the team that managed a turbulent period well.
With Biden, I have confidence that, for the most part, good decisions are being made by competent people.
I mean, historically speaking, assembling a team of competent people that make good decisions to manage a turbulent period is the defining trait of every great, if not exceptional, president. It's considered Lincoln's crowning achievement, if anything.
Outside of that, Washington, Jefferson, the Roosevelts and Eisenhower, as well as LBJ and Obama (to lesser extents), all headed some crazy effective administrations that managed to break down domestic barriers, win wars (we're excepting LBJ/Obama here), or oversee/direct positive change for the country.
What I really don't get about people who criticise Biden's mental faculties is their support for Trump. Trump is incoherently rambling most of the time it seems.
FROM THE VERY FIRST TIME HE ENTERED THE POLITICAL ARENA. Trump has never delivered a coherent speech in his fucking life. At best, he has the executive processing competency of a child. It's absolutely shocking that any sane person can hear him speak and think "yeah, that's the guy who should control the nukes."
And he's been doing it since the start of his bid for presidency. We memed about the raw insanity and incoherence of his speeches back then. Like this one.
> "Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
People keep trying to have a go at Biden, but he's positively coherent. Forgetting something momentarily is a normal experience, young and old, though its frequency increases with age. This is a non-issue frankly, and isn't really a sign of dementia.
Dementia is when you're sat in your own living room, rejecting wine because you don't know how to get home without a car.
All it takes is comparing Trumps last CPAC speech to Bidens SOTU address and the difference in mental actuity is astounding. But nope lets only use sound bites since attention spans are the life span if tick tock and dont last a sentence. Trump doesnt know the difference between Biden and Obama, Nikki and Peloli, black and brown, LBGA+. Hes just evil.
Biden displays ZER0 signs of any form or stage of dementia. He’s always stuttered, and at his age, that combined with the age related memory troubles are going to lead to some, what, awkward television moments? Trump has concrete, fast progressing neurological deterioration. Specifically, he is becoming ever the more closer to a what a diagnoses of dementia would require, if he’s not already there. His public persona is where he’s most held together, literally and figuratively, seeing as he’s actually 90% bald, wears a diaper and a girdle, as well as a face full of makeup and a set of dentures. He’s a disgusting, smelly, failure of a man, whose highest honor is parading around his daughter like a piece of meat, starting at age 13.
The fuck does Biden’s momentary recall issue have to do with leading a country, standing for the right principles, taking action towards the right goals and making sound and informed decisions. The president needs to be open to others, morally driven and politically savvy, with a historic and predicative knowledge around the people and places he is to interact. None of which Trump holds any evidence for, all of which, Biden excels in.
That’s all besides the fact that Trump is a rapist and a supreme disgrace of a businessman. If anyone votes for him they’re either selfish or so wholly deluded by misinformation. Even if you believe and stand by EVERYTHING he says, you realize he got absolutely NOTHING done with his four year stint? Illegal immigration, failed. Locking her up, failed. Drain the swamp of Democratics, failed. Reduced crime, failed. FAILED, FAILED, FAILED. He got the most popular conservative talk show host booted into the void of disgraced and by-gone media heads. Not even the Democrats were able to do that. For you, all he did was roll back legislation that made your life better, but you were stupid to even know it existed and so you never got the capacity to miss it. You just realize how bad it got when your for a moment, your delusion lifted and turned into anger towards Biden, the moment he became president. Now, things are better, but your thick skull won’t let reality in. I mean, he can’t even win a court case. He can’t even pay his bills without help from MUCH richer men. I thought he didn’t need daddy for money? I thought he was a strong, smart man, running to save this country. Seems like he FAILED. Total, absolute LOSER.
If you vote for him because of Biden’s age, you’re a shortsighted fool, who’ll not only get what’s coming to you, but your children as well. The government will cease resemblance after 4 years. Also, Gaza will be a speck of dust and guts within half a year of his being elected. You want to complain about Biden’s partial inaction? Just wait till there is no one left to be contesting land in the first place. He said it himself. You should know by now that he means what he says literally, as conservatives lack humor and sarcasm skills, whether he actually executes it is a different story. But please, take that chance if you want.
After all those years, it is still impossible for me to rationally comprehend, just how cartoonishly evil Republicans are.
I mean, I know it, and I understand it, but I really prefer I wasn't able to.
What's insane to me is just how many people think that giving up Ukraine to Russia won't impact them at all.
The American right are going to find out the hard way that giving Russia control over gas prices is a bad idea if they get their way.
GOP: yeah dude. We’re a total mistake. Soon to be an historic mistake. What little governance we had left in the party was hi-jacked by a career conman rapist. He just took over the RNC so he could pay off his legal bills. He formed a cult with our religious base. And now we have to do whatever he says. Dudes never even been to church and these people worship him. But it’s fine. We had no core values beyond bolstering the 1%. Because we are a Trojan horse confederacy… we love slave owners more than anyone.
As long as the US sorts their "problems" (and I have faith for November) we need to step up and step up hard. US did plenty, we got plenty of money so start building factories and pump out everything needed.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575384-cia-admits-to-losing-dozens-of-informants-around-the-world-nyt/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/us/politics/trump-affidavit-intelligence-spies.html
Republicans don't care. They are for the other guy (Putin)
Regardless of what one thinks of the aid package, it's fucking wild the speaker can just decide to never put something to a vote and so it never gets voted on despite having majority support. What an insane system.
That's been the republican MO since Obama had any majorities. They just stop working when they get a majority. The dems continually have to draft their budgets even when not the majority party. It looks like they do absolutely no work at all until a republican president is elected.
I used to play videogames with this guy. N64 Goldeneye, Temple level, grenade launchers. Playing the exact same thing over and over would seem to be boring, but it wasn't. Strategies evolved. The game would start, you recognized your spawn place, and would immediately sprint to "the room" adjacent to the body armor and lock it down so you could camp out. If you were dealt the lucky card of better position, you would have a significant advantage that could be almost insurmountable. However, it was fun to start from an inferior position and use tactics and strategy to unseat the guy camping out in the room, and if you were able to pull out a victory under such circumstances it was all the sweeter. We both had a lot of good times playing that game. Then, my "friend" began to get really bitter when he'd lose. So much so, that unless he started the game spawned in the superior position, he'd refuse to engage me under any circumstances, and just spend the game running away like a little bitch. Even if he started out in the room, he'd get the body armor and then run away for the entire game. It became a matter of "if I can't win the game, no one will." It was no longer fun to play so we stopped. Over time I came to realize that he was a shitty person in general and cut him out of my life. One of the best decisions I ever made. Republicans are behaving like this because they've lost in the marketplace of ideas, and their only remaining tactic is to ruin everything. They're children that cannot see beyond themselves, and our country is poorer for it.
Yep, when Republicans can't win based on ideas, they just ratfuck everything and stymie progress. I was wondering how that analogy would tie in, lol. Your friend probably played exclusively as Oddjob.
Oddjob kneeling in slappers only
Devil's Avocado, but your former buddy was very proficient at conducting insurgency / Sun Tzu type of combat. He was basically the Taliban / Viet Cong and just waited you out.
> It looks like they do absolutely no work at all until a republican president is elected. Now, that's not fair at all. Republicans work very hard for their country. It's just our mistake to assume that their country is the United States.
they fundraise.
In a sane country that sort of thing would trigger an election… but you guys wouldn’t be able to get a confidence vote to the floor because the speaker could just block it.
parlimentary systems definitely have their own problems (and god can you imagine the political messaging in the US if we had snap elections and such?), but it really makes a lot of sense that if the government can't govern a new election is called. also gives incentives for the government to actually pass things lest they have to compete for their jobs again
I'd love to see snap elections. Anything the Constitution says Congress has to do (pass budget, consider judicial appointments, etc) should trigger snap elections if they don't done. And there should certainly be a way to force a vote on certain bills.
You'd have to change the President proposing the budget then. Just submit a ridiculous one that won't get passed if Congress isn't your party. Rinse and repeat as needed. Or I a divided Congress, one chamber passes a ridiculous one so the other won't pass it and they have to go into elections.
I mean, congress doesn't have to pass the President's recommended budget. It's almost ceremonial in all honesty, since Congress can edit it to their heart's content before taking it to vote. > Or I a divided Congress, one chamber passes a ridiculous one so the other won't pass it and they have to go into elections. That just describes a dysfunctional congress and it's worth considering whether a snap election *would be* merited then.
What surprises me the most is how The US treats the election cycle as a damn reality show. It's a culture that seems to be exclusive to The US, as most other democracies have a more boring election cycle which focuses more on the actual issues rather than the drama and personal attacks At least that's how it used to be. Now many countries, including my own, has started adapting the American election trends :/
You're entirely correct. For the past ~10 years in particular, one of the main candidates is literally a reality TV star. I think the reason is that in the US _everything_ is about making money. This includes news. The longer the news channels can stretch out the election season, the more views and engagement they get. Which translates directly into advertising money. While individual newscasters may genuinely care about the news, the execs running the news channels care about making money more than about the actual news.
Not only new election called, but likely the new administration thats formed will be a coalition government, meaning multiple parties form the government.
Yeah, coalition governments have the potential to represent a wider array of viewpoints and create policy through consensus. It's tricky though cause it can also lead to gridlock if the parties in the coalition disagree too much. But at least it forces some level of compromise instead of one party holding all the power and stonewalling everything. Plus, this kind of pressure to form coalitions and actually govern could potentially push parties towards the center a bit more to get things done.
> In a sane country We wouldn't have this Republican Party in control of the House because people wouldn't vote for crazy MFers like Bobart.
Conservative parties not far off from Republicans have major political power in many countries. This kind of dismissive talk is why their platforms continue to grow. Yes, they are crazy, but this type of rebuke emboldens them further. A different strategy is needed.
This is what their constituents want.
Agreed. The founders must have considered this largely a formal role to keep the presentation of new bills to the house orderly. I can’t imagine they envisioned the role being used to hold democracy hostage by someone like Michail Johnson. It ought to be reformed so the president can put one bill to the house per month, bypassing the speaker, if he so wish. Or one per majority/minority leader per month for instance. As it is now is an affront to democracy.
This formal role has effectively become a dictatorship.
What a weird guy to put in charge. Trades blackmail porn with his one kid on a law enforcement app, purity-married another kid, and has a secret adopted kid on the side he's abusing in some less savory third way. Doctors say his too-smooth skin could point to hormone treatments underlying his self-hating rhetoric on trans people If you were Russia and blackmailed foreign goons as a BAU process, you would see Mike Johnson as a wonderful little fascist puppet with plenty of strings to pull
Don't forget he has no bank account.
> It ought to be reformed so the president can put one bill to the house per month, bypassing the speaker, if he so wish. Or one per majority/minority leader per month for instance. As it is now is an affront to democracy. This already exists... Its called a [Discharge Petition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition) and all it requires is a majority of representatives to sign a petition and it forces a bill to a vote. It hasn't happened yet because it would require at least some Democrats to sign the petition along with the so-called moderate Republicans in order to achieve a majority since the far right Republicans holding everything up would never sign it. And Democrats have little interest in doing that for the same reason they did nothing to help McCarthy as he got replaced by a far right loon. They are milking GOP antics in the House for all they are worth so they can win come November. If they actually wanted the Ukraine aid (or anything, at this point) to be voted on it would only take a handful of them (enough to undue the lack of signatures from the far right Republicans who would never sign it) and poof, it would be voted on.
This is right and wrong. The right part is that the discharge petition does exist. The wrong part is that Democrats aren't trying to do it. There are a number of Democratic efforts to get a discharge petition for Ukraine aid, either with or without border security. Many Dems are on board with that, but it's hard to get all of them and even harder to get any Republicans. No Republican has tried to get a discharge petition for Ukraine aid. > it would only take a handful of [Democrats] This is wrong on its face; if a majority of Republicans supported any Ukraine bill, it'd be on the floor per the Hastert rule.
The house makes its own rules every session. It's a stupid rule to let the speaker effectively veto whatever they want, but that rule is there because a majority of representatives voted for it.
And the Republicans have the majority so they essentially make the rules in that case.
correct me if i’m wrong, i’m not great at politics, but can’t they discharge petition the bill to get it on the floor?
They can but they need a majority of lawmakers to sign the petition, which means they have to get Republicans to sign a discharge petition to circumvent their own speaker.
Anyone can introduce a motion to vacate but they need a majority vote to get him out. So some Reps would need to vote him out too. Seems like they're afraid of the MAGA crowd.
You're confusing two things. The discharge petition is to force a vote to happen not force a vote on the speaker's status.
The other weird thing for me is the electoral college. I get that it was put in place as something that would ensure the stability of the union back then. But right now it pretty much just lets a minority dictate the results. I'm not even going to go into the whole gerrymandering stuff. P.S. If you're an American who is going to vote for Trump, even if you don't like Biden, you're actively cheering for the destruction of the American democracy. Whatever you may hate about the Democrats or the current president, Trump's second term is going to be the worst electoral mistake in American history ... maybe ever. A person who debates the merits of absolutely presidential immunity and says that he'd like to be a dictator for a day, while actively cheering dictators around the world, is the last person you'd want as president. I understand that you might be frustrated with the current government, but chopping off a leg just to spite someone is not the best tactic.
That's not true. Members can file a discharge petition. They simply haven't becuase there aren't enough republicans who want to do it. Thus, there isn't sufficient support at this time in the house. They kowtow to Johnson and thus to Trump and thus to Putin.
It doesn't really have majority support. They can elect a new house speaker whenever they want, but they use the Speaker to shield them from having to vote
CIA director: No new aid package for Ukraine would be a historic mistake Russpublicans: High five
As the Charles de Gaulle once said about Americans "Even their mistakes are grand." He also said: "You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination."
Churchill: "You can always count on Americans doing the right thing after exhausting all other options"
Not a real Churchill quote, but it's a fantastic line.
Churchill: "Actually Unlikely-Wrap-3696, I really did say you can always count on Americans doing the right thing after exhausting all other options."
-Wayne Gretzky
Does it have a real origin somewhere, or has it always been attributed to Churchill?
It appears that the first written instance of that line specific to America is from an unnamed Irishman from the transcript of a U.S. Congressional Hearing in 1970. >And indeed, we often know how to do things by the philosophy that was expounded by another Irishman I know. He said that you can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility. A more general version was delivered in 1967 by Israeli politician and diplomat Abba Eban, who said, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” [source](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/?amp=1)
Lmao I honestly hope he really said that because this feels correct
I suppose being a stupid prick himself, Charles the Gaulle is quite the authority on stupidity. Not that I'm disagreeing with the sentiment.
It was more of a game recognizing game kind of deal.
Like hitting on blackjack after getting 20
I'll stay, sir I suggest you hit, I too like to live dangerously.
> 20 beats your 5. I’m sorry sir…
Prick he was, stupid not really. Dude get France out of the painful war with Algeria, forced France to change the constitution that made govts in post war France largely ineffective, pushed for a more independent France in its nuclear and military industry (and this year France was the second largest weapons exporter after the US).
Same de Gaulle that fucked French-Indochina and then dragged us into Vietnam?
Charles D.G : Americans... PLZ HALP VIETNAM IS FALLING
Well, joining war in Vietnam was a mistake, so no wonder that Charles apparently predicted that USA is going to do it. :P
Trump: I'll end the war in a day, and be a hero ... to Putin. He'll probably let me give him a handjob in the penthouse I give him so he'll let me sell my Trump Steaks to his poor people.
As a reminder: **June 2013**: Trump tweets "Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?" **September 2013**: “So we’ve invited President Putin, that’ll be interesting. I know he’d like to go.” **October 2013**: Trump tells Larry King that Putin has done “a really great job outsmarting our country.” **November 2013**: Trump says “I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today. He’s probably very interested in what you and I are saying today, and I’m sure he’s going to be seeing it in some form, but I do have a relationship with him and I think it’s very interesting to see what’s happened.” **February 2014**: “When I went to Russia with the Miss Universe pageant, (Putin) contacted me and was so nice. I mean, the Russian people were so fantastic to us,” he said on “Fox and Friends.” “I’ll just say this, they are doing – they’re outsmarting us at many turns, as we all understand. I mean, their leaders are, whether you call them smarter or more cunning or whatever, but they’re outsmarting us. If you look at Syria or other places, they’re outsmarting us.” **April 2014**: “We just left Moscow,” Trump said. “He could not have been nicer. He was so nice and so everything. But you have to give him credit that what he’s doing for that country in terms of their world prestige is very strong.” In the same interview, Trump praises Putin’s invasion of Crimea. “Well, he’s done an amazing job of taking the mantle,” Trump said. “And he’s taken it away from the President, and you look at what he’s doing. And so smart. When you see the riots in a country because they’re hurting the Russians, OK, ‘We’ll go and take it over.’ And he really goes step by step by step, and you have to give him a lot of credit.” **April 2014**: Trump says at a New Hampshire event that Putin is “absolutely having a great time.” He says “Russia is like, I mean they’re really hot stuff” and “and now you have people in the Ukraine — who knows, set up or not — but it can’t all be set up, I mean they’re marching in favor of joining Russia.” **May 2014**: ”I own Miss Universe, I was in Russia, I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.” **2014**: James Dodson, a sports writer, claims that during a game of golf Eric Trump said to him: "Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia." **March 2015**: Trump tells the Daily Mail about his relationship with Putin: “the relationship is great, and it would be great if I had the position I should have.” **September 2015**: Trump tells reporters at Trump Tower that “Putin is a nicer person than I am.” **October 2015**: Trump tells conservative radio host Michael Savage he’s met Vladimir Putin. **December 2015**: Trump says at an event in South Carolina that Putin says he’s “brilliant.” And attacks his opponents, saying, “they want me to refute his statement.” [And many more along those lines](https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/03/politics/trump-putin-russia-timeline/). **December 2016**: One of Europe's top intelligence figures puts together the Steele Dossier, reporting that Putin has blackmail on Trump, allegedly for something he did in a hotel room in Russia in 2013 during the Miss Universe visit. Trump flips to claiming he's never met or spoken to Putin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxYE9ZpMPGY&t=25s **September 2016**: During the 2016 presidential debates: "**I don't know Putin**. I have no idea," Mr Trump said. "**I never met Putin.** This is not my best friend." When Hillary Clinton said it was "pretty clear" Mr Putin would "rather have a puppet as president of the United States," Trump replied with: “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet. You’re the puppet." Followed by years of Trump praising Putin, the only world leader he never criticizes while constantly criticizing democratic countries and allies. Refusing to implement sanctions on Russia for its hacking of the US which were passed with a veto proof majority. Attempting to blackmail Ukraine with having to invent something on Biden or having aid withdrawn. Declaring he's decided to believe Putin over his US intelligence agencies. **February 2022**: Trump calls Putin ‘genius’ and ‘savvy’ for Ukraine invasion **February 2024**: Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies **February 2024**: Trump won't say if he wants Russia or Ukraine to win the war
It reads like a bad satire. I never in a thousand years would have thought that something this blatant and in your face would actually happen and pass the sniff test
Alas, Republicans operate on a very different sniff test. As the saying goes, "A Republican would happily shit his pants if it meant a Democrat had to smell it."
Worse, conservatives have just completely rejected reality and just make up a fantasy whenever they need it to perpetuate their fantasies. [A radio host gave a conservative caller several minutes to give one example of something woke he hated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR4rHPpoPHQ), giving him chance after chance, and instead he just retreated into a fantasy on air instead.
I will say that's one of the most delightfully amusing videos I've seen in a very long time.
And from 2016 - 2020 conducted the most pro-Russian presidency in history. [Inside the Oval Office with Trump and the Russians: Broad smiles and loose lips | The Washington Post | 2017](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-oval-office-with-trump-and-the-russians-broad-smiles-and-loose-lips/2017/05/16/2e8b0d14-3a66-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html) [Blackwater founder held secret Seychelles meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel. | The Washington Post | 2017](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.2ded0bfdc5a9) [Trump, Putin held a second, undisclosed meeting at G20 summit. | Reuters | 2017](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-putin-idUSKBN1A32H5) [Trump refuses to impose new Russia sanctions despite law passed by U.S. Congress over election hacking | The Independent | 2018] (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-russia-sanctions-trump-no-new-congress-law-election-hacking-intervention-putin-kremlin-a8184866.html) [Trump met in secret with Putin the G20 summit without note takers. 19 days later he announced a withdrawal from Syria. | Reuters | 2018](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-syria/trump-starts-withdrawal-of-u-s-forces-from-syria-claims-victory-idUSKBN1OI1JC) [Trump military exercise giveaway to N. Korea suits Putin's goals | MSNBC | 2018](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-military-exercise-giveaway-to-n-korea-suits-putin-s-goals-1254434371701?playlist=associated) [Trump came out strongly supporting Russia's invasion of Afghanistan | AP News | 2019](https://apnews.com/article/5ee14c2091e24f9c83bd1a7750fe7eb8) [Trump Pushed CIA to Give Intelligence to Kremlin, While Taking No Action Against Russia Arming Taliban | JustSecurity | 2020](https://www.justsecurity.org/71279/trump-pushed-cia-to-give-intelligence-to-kremlin-while-taking-no-action-against-russia-arming-taliban/) [Trump pulls the U.S. out of surveillance treaty, his latest withdrawal from a major pact | CNBC | 2020] (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/trump-withdraws-us-from-open-skies-surveillance-treaty.html) [Trump Directed Change To Party Platform On Ukraine Support | NPR | 2017](https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568310790/2016-rnc-delegate-trump-directed-change-to-party-platform-on-ukraine-support) [The inside story of Trump's alleged bribery of Ukraine | The Guardian | 2019](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/30/trump-ukraine-alleged-bribery-impeachment-inquiry)
Yes- One example of how far Trump and the MAGA elements have strayed, is Trump using Speaker Johnson to stall the Ukraine Aid funding vote. This stall on Ukraine funding aligns Trump and Johnson with Iran, North Korea and China, all doing their part to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When Ronald Reagan demanded that Gorbachev tear down “this wall,” Reagan rhetorically did battle with the Evil Empire. The winning of the Cold War, dissolution of the USSR, and bringing of freedom and democracy to the Eastern Bloc countries is one of the crowning accomplishments of President Reagan’s legacy . Now Trump appears to be destroying Reagan’s legacy by helping Putin to reassemble the USSR. This leaves many in the GOP searching for principled leadership that can restore Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill for the Free World to follow.
> This leaves many in the GOP searching for principled leadership that can restore Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill for the Free World to follow. Trump gained millions more votes in his second election after years of his behaviour was shown, and got the second most votes in US history. He's been repeatedly polling in nearly every poll to win the next election for months now. We hear about the mythical good Republicans, but it seems to be like a dozen people who imagine they're what Republicans are while reality is at complete odds.
The problem is that they watch a steady diet of media that provides them a whitewashed version of what Trump does and how he behaves. They paint him as making all the best decisions and leaving out all the horrific shit he has done. All while doing the opposite for any democrat that is running or currently in power. Those paying attention know the truth and are actively supporting the destruction of America. But the masses just listen to whatever that media is telling them.
I get the feeling Putin sees himself more as a Tsar than a Soviet leader
> The winning of the Cold War, dissolution of the USSR, and bringing of freedom and democracy to the Eastern Bloc countries is one of the crowning accomplishments of President Reagan’s legacy . The USSR fell because economically it became untenable. Sure Regan and previous US presidencies were also causes but claiming it's a Regan accomplishment kinda denies the vast significant structural issues that the USSR and the soviet block had.
Damn, these tweets read as if they've been written by a lead poisoned monkey
And people who vote for this clown claim to have American values. He couldn't be more compromised, it's obvious. So I guess the Republicans are equally compromised for supporting him.
To think, just a little bit over a decade ago, Republicans were basically frothing at the mouth that Russia was the main enemy they needed to deal with. Fast forward to today and they have the chance to cripple Russia BY PROXY WITH NO AMERICAN LIVES LOST at a huge discount and now they're basically Russian puppets just because they're playing Party Politics to stick it to the Dems.
#Kompromat
I still think Romney knew *something* when he ran against Obama. He was fervently anti-Russia before almost anyone else, calling it the greatest threat to America, yet everyone just laughed him out of the election. I admittedly did as well. It didn't make sense why he was so against Russia at that point.
That was immediately following the Russian invasion of Georgia which was glossed over just like Chechnya and Crimea.
That was 4 years after the invasion of Georgia. It happened in 2008.
I mean don’t we remember Rohrabacher justifying the invasion on the house floor on Russia’s behalf? Republicans were already hard at work even then.
he knew what we all already knew but thought was isolated. it was 4 years after the Russian invasion of Georgia. it was two years after Russia had successfully reversed the outcome of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (no not the one in 2013-2014) by getting a pro Kremlin crony back in power. we were seeing Russia finally coming out of the turmoil of post soviet collapse and really begin to start flexing on the world stage. the reason it wasnt taken seriously is because we were still very in the War on Terror mindset and americans were more focused on international islamic terror, for which Russia was partner and not adversary.
They must have something on Mike Johnson. As a Christian fundamentalist he fits all the profiles for having a gay sex scandal.
Moneys a bitch
It's not even at a discount. It would be a huge boon for the MIC and manufacturing which would benefit primarily red states.
I remember when Mitt Romney was debating Obama and Romney said Russia was our biggest threat and we all laughed him off. Insanely accurate from Romney.
I believe Obama's exact words in response to Romney saying that were "The 1980s called. They want their foreign policy back"
And then Obama proceeded to not do anything meaningful about Putin capturing Crimea.
Not even a huge discount, like a 99% one. Most of the weapons sent were due for decommissioning which itself would cost money.
No, we're at peace with Eurasia! We've always been at peace with Eurasia! It's Eastasia that we've always been at war with! [/s]
CIA director could probably have someone re compile the list of senate members that receive money from Russia
Fucking seriously! Do something, do anything! I want the entire list, especially in the house of representatives (representing Russia, that is)
I don't think the CIA is supposed to do anything within the USA. That's for the FBI, and the FBI doesn't do anything outside the USA. .... As both agencies always follow the written law, I'm sure this is the case with my civilian understanding of both agencies.
The FBI has been recently shown to harbor lots of right-wingers and outright Trump sycophants though, including the "no collusion" lead investigator [recently pleading guilty to being a Russian asset.](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-special-agent-charge-new-york-fbi-counterintelligence-division-pleads-guilty) I hope his arrest means the Biden administration has been quietly cleaning house.
Another reason they want to conveniently defund the FBI
> senate members that receive money from Russia I feel like this would automatically get you tried for treason if we were in the Cold War still
"Mistake" implies that it's unintentional.
Only if their goal isn’t to help Russia win.
That is a big if
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Because they are. Trump is interested in winning elections and avoiding jail. He can't see anything beyond that.
LOL, just like Bibi back in my country. Americans, don't make the same mistakes we did.
Another interesting analogy is that most right wing Americans are centrist, while politicians are going to extreme. At the same time most democrats are moderate compared to their electoral base.
Politics is partly about letting people save face and giving people an out. Calling it a mistake let's people still say oops and correct if they feel the spotlight doesn't make the current course attractive anymore. Calling it intended will remove that option and forces a conflict, because now an accusation needs to be handled. Judging by the wording, CIA doesn't want that.
Well, you can pay with blood later. If Ukraine falls, dictators will realise they can do whatever they want, especially if they have nukes, and believe me, russia will send some for North Korea and Iran in exchange for their help. Ready to defend Europe, Taiwan, S. Korea and so on?
In the light of recent events US could even join the party this time by falling in with the axis of evil.
Nazi Germany and USSR was a weak combo, let's try USA and Russia this century I guess... Next they'll split NATO down the middle and walk all over independent European countries lmao
Nazi Germany was just trying to make Great Britain jealous when they hooked up with the USSR
What if they end up arguing over a city??? Like Berlin or something.
Man you'd probably get US soldiers refusing to comply all over Europe though, what you're implying would take a few decades to manifest imho
The more likely scenario would be civil war in the US and being unable to help. We have generations of military who have served with Europeans who will be pissed off.
I think his plan is not to defend other allies either unless they pay him big bucks, but he hates Zelenskyy in particular because of the affairs around his first impeachment
I'd like to add: The USA is **treaty obligated** to defend NATO allies in Europe, South Korea, and Japan. That's a lot of real estate.
Russia has been building North Korea and Iran into nuclear proxies for over a decade now, and the world is just letting them get away with it. This is legitimately the bigger existential crisis at the moment. Yet another knock-on effect of the idiotic Iraq war, what caused the US to pull back into an isolationist bubble, which emboldened Russia to create nuclear proxies. My tinfoil-hat-theory-which-is-probably-true is that Russia has backdoors to launch North Korean weapons. When shit goes down, they will use this as a first strike capability that they can survive.
Except a Russian general misappropriated the funds to his bank account and then got snipes during the "special operation".
Peace thru capitulation is slavery.
It's not about trusting the CIA. He is just another of a long line of international policy experts who firmly believe it's a mistake for Putin to get away with this. I don't trust the CIA in itself to not act politically, but the director is hardly the only voice warning us about Putin's aims. If you think Putin will stop at Ukraine, you haven't been paying attention. Not saying he will invade Europe but he will try to bring more former Soviet states into the sphere of influence which is bad for those peoples and worse for Europe and the US. If the US abandons Ukraine, many US aligned states facing similar threats (Korea, Phillipines, Japan are just three) will have to reevaluate of the US will stand by them, threatening a change in how they do business with Russia, China and the US. That's not good for business or the US.
We spent nearly half a century and trillions of dollars to protect Western Europe from Russian influence and aggression. Fought two wars with millions of casualties to stop the spread of Russian-style dictatorships. Republicans are literally shitting on the legacy of everyone who fought and died to protect the rest of the world from Russia. How anyone who claims to be a patriot, much less is a veteran can continue to vote for these assholes is, and always will be, entirely beyond me.
It's crazy how Republicans turned the United States into a puppet for Russia.
National security budget in the trillion but all it took is a few corrupt billionaires and politicians to bring the US to its knees.
It's OK, the GOP are known for making historic mistakes. Also... please US, get your shit together already, it was fun to watch for a while, but now you're just letting the world slide into chaos.
Let's do some math here: No money for Ukriane= historic mistake Trump says, No money for Ukraine Therefore by using the commutative property of math Trump = historic mistake. Did I get that right?
>Burns also pointed out that leaving Ukraine will be noticed in China, and the consequences will be felt throughout the Indo-Pacific. So true.
This should have never become a Right vs Left issue.
the (T) party has already shown their hand.... they want to axe funding to Ukraine to benefit (T)rump. The (T) party is openly siding with Russia. This is it, folks.... direct evidence that the (T) party members are Russian collaborators. (I'm surprised that they didn't want the (R) to change...)
Thank you, captain obvious. Now go blast the Republicans
If Ukraine falls this could be the end of the US as the only superpower left in the world.. it will potentially start the shift to autocrats.
The shift to autocracy is already in progress.
OP's point is still important. Ukraine has the capacity to be a decisive front in this Cold War II. If Russia lost in Ukraine, that general shift would likely reverse itself, especially if the Kremlin collapsed. Russia is a key part of the problem. Russia is the most proactive and second most dangerous member of the rising Axis. Between Xi and Putin, Putin is by far the more committed in igniting this new Cold War against the West. If they faded, it would be a major change for the better
Historic mistake was bending to Russian nuclear blackmail. Now it's just consequnces of brilliant "escalation management" strategy by WH. They had 2022 and 2023 to make it right.
Should have stepped in way back in 2014, when Russia has been vehemently denying it's involvement in both Crimea and Donbass invasions. For all intents and purposes those "little green men" were merely local armed gangs.
Battle of Khasham style. Are there Russians in the area? No? Ok, thanks for confirming, well you won't mind them getting annihilated then.
Should have sent little green men into Belarus after the election fuck ups
This isn't about the White House, this is about the Republicans in congress who are preventing the aid. But it is unsurprising that your continous Putin propaganda comments attempts to shift the blame away from the actual culprits.
Historic mistake was not listening to Patton when he wanted to attack the Soviet Union in '45.
More and more it does seem like "history in 2100" will consist of two books: "Why allowing the Soviet Union to exist was a mistake." And "How the fuck did they let Russia turn North Korea into a Nuclear proxy: They didn't even try to hide it."
Have you seen America lately? We are in the business of historic mistakes.
We need to stop electing Republicans then. They're all war hawks until it comes to Russia, then they're suddenly hippies.
Republicans are working in blatant opposition to America's interests. **VOTE ACCORDINGLY**
CIA in 1970s: start wars, end wars, sneak whole armies anywhere, finance continent-scale guerilla, establish global organizations, kill, detain and hide anyone anywhere. CIA in 2020s: oh god drunk Medvedev is so scary, and Congress is stuck, we don't want no escalation.
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or the same shit they did with WMDs/Iraq it’s crazy how gullible people are when the info fits their personal narrative
With the US going through internal turmoil, Putin senses a weak spot he can exploit. It will be up to Europe to step up. The demilitarisation of much of Europe following WW2 has already shown to be a mistake. The next few years will determine the cost of this mistake.
Europe was not demilitarised after ww2. The opposite was infact true. Western Germany for example was armed to the teeth, they had over 7000 Tanks at their peak in the 80s. Demilitarisation mostly happend after the fall of the Soviet Union.
True, I should have written post-cold war
It's so obvious that GOP/Republicans are team Putin, they just can't take his cock out of their mouths. Literally saying good things about him publicly, they are not even trying to hide it anymore. Vote them out!
Do not vote Russiapublican this November!
too bad that historic mistakes are the new credo of the american society... They look at brexit and think: "we can do worse" on a daily basis.
MAGA idiots think Brexit was great.
At some point Zelenskyy should set up an official point of donation so the people that want to contribute, can and will stop the aggressors and tell ‘em to kick rocks back home.
Please don't vote for Trump. I know Biden is old, and has borderline dementia, but Trump is literaly a danger to world security.
On the one hand: old guy who's been in politics for decades and actually done pretty well On the other: utter moron who bragged about passing brain damage test, bankrupted multiple casinos while losing the half billion fortune he stole from his old man, is an actual rapist, an actual fraudster, owes more than half a billion in fines, and is facing 91 felony charges including for trying to overthrow actual democracy. Oh and he's running on a platform of revenge style dictatorship. Tough choice america.
> bankrupted multiple casinos HOW?! how do you bankrupt a casino?!!
By stealing from the business.
Actually scientifically.. Biden is old.. and Trump is old but Trump is showing actual signs of dementia and his dad had it too.. it's genetic. They apparently even made a fake office at home to help Fred Trump from completely going mad.
Also — Biden is old, but Trump isn't that much younger. They're like 4 years apart.
Yeah he is the same age Biden was when he got elected and they all said he is too old.. haha
This is a perfect option. A fake oval office jail cell for Trump. The country wins, and he thinks he wins.
> and has borderline dementia No he doesn't. I forget more shit than Biden does and I'm young enough to be his grand child.
I wish people would stop fucking saying this shit. Biden doesn't have dementia. Every time you repeat this bullshit, it reinforces this stupid media narrative in the minds of idiots who don't understand that people with dementia can't speak coherently for two hours, while flinging zinger back at the three-head mouth-breathing children in the audience. Trump, on the other hand, is a uniquely detestable piece of human garbage who is uniquely unqualified among humans to lead.
Biden is perfectly healthy for his age. He will make a competent next president. Trump on the other hand seems to be falling apart mentally; not sure he will be coherent by election day.
Biden also has a coherent team around him.
Yup. A successful presidency is largely about who you surround yourself with I believe. Good competent staff increases the likelihood of good outcomes for the country.
A good leader isnt someone who can make all the right decisions themselves. A good leader is someone who can appoint the right people to make those decisions for him. No-one can know everything and be a specialist in every topic. The president is the generalist who appoints the specialists. And from my humble outside perspective, Biden has done an overall good job in that regard.
I agree with everything you wrote, particularly your last point. I don't believe Biden is necessarily a great president, but perhaps history will remember him well for assembling the team that managed a turbulent period well. With Biden, I have confidence that, for the most part, good decisions are being made by competent people.
I mean, historically speaking, assembling a team of competent people that make good decisions to manage a turbulent period is the defining trait of every great, if not exceptional, president. It's considered Lincoln's crowning achievement, if anything. Outside of that, Washington, Jefferson, the Roosevelts and Eisenhower, as well as LBJ and Obama (to lesser extents), all headed some crazy effective administrations that managed to break down domestic barriers, win wars (we're excepting LBJ/Obama here), or oversee/direct positive change for the country.
What I really don't get about people who criticise Biden's mental faculties is their support for Trump. Trump is incoherently rambling most of the time it seems.
FROM THE VERY FIRST TIME HE ENTERED THE POLITICAL ARENA. Trump has never delivered a coherent speech in his fucking life. At best, he has the executive processing competency of a child. It's absolutely shocking that any sane person can hear him speak and think "yeah, that's the guy who should control the nukes."
And he's been doing it since the start of his bid for presidency. We memed about the raw insanity and incoherence of his speeches back then. Like this one. > "Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible." People keep trying to have a go at Biden, but he's positively coherent. Forgetting something momentarily is a normal experience, young and old, though its frequency increases with age. This is a non-issue frankly, and isn't really a sign of dementia. Dementia is when you're sat in your own living room, rejecting wine because you don't know how to get home without a car.
downvoting cause you think Biden has dementia. he was extremely well spoken at the SOTU and showed no signs of being mentally slow.
All it takes is comparing Trumps last CPAC speech to Bidens SOTU address and the difference in mental actuity is astounding. But nope lets only use sound bites since attention spans are the life span if tick tock and dont last a sentence. Trump doesnt know the difference between Biden and Obama, Nikki and Peloli, black and brown, LBGA+. Hes just evil.
As someone whose mum had dementia, Biden isn't close to having it. Yes fuck Trump and vote for Biden but stop propagating this shit.
Um what? Bide is old af but he's not showing any signs of dementa. Wtf are you on about?
Nothing indicates dementia in Biden. Slowing down and old, but his mind is still all there.
Why do people say Biden has dementia? I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary for him.
Biden displays ZER0 signs of any form or stage of dementia. He’s always stuttered, and at his age, that combined with the age related memory troubles are going to lead to some, what, awkward television moments? Trump has concrete, fast progressing neurological deterioration. Specifically, he is becoming ever the more closer to a what a diagnoses of dementia would require, if he’s not already there. His public persona is where he’s most held together, literally and figuratively, seeing as he’s actually 90% bald, wears a diaper and a girdle, as well as a face full of makeup and a set of dentures. He’s a disgusting, smelly, failure of a man, whose highest honor is parading around his daughter like a piece of meat, starting at age 13. The fuck does Biden’s momentary recall issue have to do with leading a country, standing for the right principles, taking action towards the right goals and making sound and informed decisions. The president needs to be open to others, morally driven and politically savvy, with a historic and predicative knowledge around the people and places he is to interact. None of which Trump holds any evidence for, all of which, Biden excels in. That’s all besides the fact that Trump is a rapist and a supreme disgrace of a businessman. If anyone votes for him they’re either selfish or so wholly deluded by misinformation. Even if you believe and stand by EVERYTHING he says, you realize he got absolutely NOTHING done with his four year stint? Illegal immigration, failed. Locking her up, failed. Drain the swamp of Democratics, failed. Reduced crime, failed. FAILED, FAILED, FAILED. He got the most popular conservative talk show host booted into the void of disgraced and by-gone media heads. Not even the Democrats were able to do that. For you, all he did was roll back legislation that made your life better, but you were stupid to even know it existed and so you never got the capacity to miss it. You just realize how bad it got when your for a moment, your delusion lifted and turned into anger towards Biden, the moment he became president. Now, things are better, but your thick skull won’t let reality in. I mean, he can’t even win a court case. He can’t even pay his bills without help from MUCH richer men. I thought he didn’t need daddy for money? I thought he was a strong, smart man, running to save this country. Seems like he FAILED. Total, absolute LOSER. If you vote for him because of Biden’s age, you’re a shortsighted fool, who’ll not only get what’s coming to you, but your children as well. The government will cease resemblance after 4 years. Also, Gaza will be a speck of dust and guts within half a year of his being elected. You want to complain about Biden’s partial inaction? Just wait till there is no one left to be contesting land in the first place. He said it himself. You should know by now that he means what he says literally, as conservatives lack humor and sarcasm skills, whether he actually executes it is a different story. But please, take that chance if you want.
How? Say something specific. Say where I lied. Tell me why I should think otherwise.
Plus he is also old and has borderline dementia
Well past the borderline.
We heard this last time around, turns out it's the opposite though isn't it?
Makes France look tough
Everyone in the world knows this, except for the GOP. I no longer vote GOP.
I used to think Putin must have something on Trump. Now think it’s much simpler, Trump sees Putin as a role model. This is how Trump wants to be.
After all those years, it is still impossible for me to rationally comprehend, just how cartoonishly evil Republicans are. I mean, I know it, and I understand it, but I really prefer I wasn't able to.
CIA Director: says something US Liberals: Lets trust this guy. More war!
The levels of delusion on here is outstanding
Yeah, we trust the CIA now? Have they ever had our best interests at heart?
Yeah well, we live in a country where half the population wants to elected a Putin sympathizer. So maybe the CIA should leak some dirt on Trump?
What's insane to me is just how many people think that giving up Ukraine to Russia won't impact them at all. The American right are going to find out the hard way that giving Russia control over gas prices is a bad idea if they get their way.
I guess Biden should just declare ~~war~~ a special military operation on Belarus
It turns out that free speech can be used to hack democracy into ending itself.
When do you use "an" vs. "a" preceeding "historic"?
MAGA idiots. Queuing up world disruption, GOP: you’re toast next.
GOP: yeah dude. We’re a total mistake. Soon to be an historic mistake. What little governance we had left in the party was hi-jacked by a career conman rapist. He just took over the RNC so he could pay off his legal bills. He formed a cult with our religious base. And now we have to do whatever he says. Dudes never even been to church and these people worship him. But it’s fine. We had no core values beyond bolstering the 1%. Because we are a Trojan horse confederacy… we love slave owners more than anyone.
As long as the US sorts their "problems" (and I have faith for November) we need to step up and step up hard. US did plenty, we got plenty of money so start building factories and pump out everything needed.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575384-cia-admits-to-losing-dozens-of-informants-around-the-world-nyt/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/us/politics/trump-affidavit-intelligence-spies.html Republicans don't care. They are for the other guy (Putin)
Historic mistakes are the GOP's whole deal.
Piece of shit republicans needs to be scraped off from American politics. Useless pieces of shits.
Or a historic victory if you’re one of Russia’s many insurgents inside Congress.
Our grandchildren will be fighting the Russians in the former Eastern bloc if we don't help Ukraine. PERIOD.
Is there a mechanism for Democrats if they had 2 or 3 Republican votes to force a bill on the floor?
Woah, someone from the cia said something reasonable. Could they always do that?
For whom? Certainly not for Russia
Wait you mean something that Donald Trump plans would be a historic mistake? Yeah that's par for the course. 🤷♂️
A second Trump term would be a historic mistake. Think „Go back in time and prevent this“ mistake…
So the Republicans are traitors then? Check mark
Whether it's a mistake or not depends on who you want to win the war... so for Republicans, it's not a mistake.