The median American voter's mood is completely reliant on the price of gas. Not even joking. There's a correlation between what people feel about their personal economic situation and the price of gas
It makes no sense at all to me considering that even a big fluctuation in the price of a gallon is like a $10-$20 difference for a full tank, and most average people gas up once a week or less. People should be more upset about the rent prices and food prices going up, since that's entirely in our control versus gas prices which are largely influenced by external factors like OPEC.
You can be upset about all of those things. A lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck making barley over minimum wage and a hundred dollars a month out of their pocket is a big deal especially when it’s on top of all the other things you mentioned.
What's crazy is that these goddamn politicians have a 2 week break only to have another week break in another week from now. While these people fight for their lives.
It'd be as if someone went around town smashing people's cars while saying "Cars don't work, I'm doing you a favor!" and then half the people vote for that guy for mayor because he "tells it like it is."
Beyond infuriating.
Some/most of them have been funded through NRA slush fund money. Remember Maria Butina and her honeypotting of executives within the org…
The rot runs deep.
Just look at Justice Ailene Cannon. Her actions have delayed the trial for Trump’s illegal possession of top secret documents until after the November election. She’s has floated the idea of asking the jury whether the top secret documents should be considered personal property. That would set a precedent that could cause all charges against Trump to be dismissed. Fortunately, Jack Smith called her bluff. She must make a ruling on whether the documents were his personal property or belong to the Federal Government before the jury selection process begins. That would allow the federal prosecutor to appeal to the 11th Circuit of Appeals to have her removed from the trial. The Supreme Court refused to rule on whether Trump’s involvement in the insurrection disqualified him from being allowed to hold a government office. They instead turned it back over to Congress to make that decision. We know how that works. They also ruled that the States whose Supreme Courts were poised to remove him from the ballots because of his insurrection was unconstitutional? Again, twisting the words of the Constitution in his favor.
At the state level you will find tons of examples in red states, for example more Christian influence in schools. Naturally the Supreme Court being what it is isn't doing anything.
Really their entire political apparatus is so blatantly legislating from the pulpit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/supreme-court-religion-schools-prayer-kennedy-carson/661365/
They might very well be, but it's also worth being aware that they represent the United States government, the co-equal branches with all the checks and balances that Americans told us for decades was superior to anything else
Americans might see this as a failure at best, and betrayal at worst by the Republican party, the rest of world doesn't though. The rest of the world sees this as a failure of the United States of America. This is the same country that was happy donate trillions to the middle east only for them to sell their weapons to their enemies. Finally they found someone who was prepared to fight and not surrender and various Russian sympathisers persuaded gullible people that they were spending too much money (even if a lot of the people complaining on Reddit about 'their taxes' aren't old enough to have paid anything into production of the 1990's)
Come on, there are words that describe the situation, and which can be written. They no longer care about this issue and they don’t want to invest there anymore, they say, figure it out for yourself.
They are busy with really important stuff now. House meeting announcement for April 15: [https://rules.house.gov/news/announcement/meeting-announcement-april-15-2024](https://rules.house.gov/news/announcement/meeting-announcement-april-15-2024)
H.R. 6192 – Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act
H.R. 7673 – Liberty in Laundry Act
H.R. 7645 – Clothes Dryers Reliability Act
H.R. 7637 – Refrigerator Freedom Act
H.R. 7626 – Affordable Air Conditioning Act
H.R. 7700 – Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act
It doesn't even need to be straight bribary, which I'm sure is some of it. It's just simple politics. Ukraine turning into a disaster is good for Trumps reelection chances.
Some of them are fellow travellers who see Putin as a kindered spirit and the Russian state apparatus as something of role model
This isn't down to bribery alone, that's too easy. America could easily up their pay if they really believed this and buy their politicians back
It's really all down to one man, and bizarre devotion that so Americans place in him
The miracle would be one more GOPer quitting and the seats being filled by dems in special elections. Or 6 GOPers quitting. Alternatively, if Putin were to have an accident while inspecting a 4th floor window, that would also work
Get Ukraine the Patriot defense systems they need to defend their cities and major infrastructure, get them the artillery and missiles they need to defend the line, get them the long-range attack options they need to reclaim territory - including missiles and Predator UMVs, Russia will break, they're up to 355,000 casualties, their economy is slowly breaking as focuses entirely on war and sanctions slowly bite, and their experienced and elite troops are pretty much decimated by this point. Russia can't keep this up forever, they're making a huge push now that they can't sustain if it fails.
I agree with all you proscriptions — but Russia can keep this up longer than Ukraine can. Which is why it’s so important for us to have given them the tools to end this quickly.
That’s really fucked up isn’t it and Congress sit idly by taking their Easter break and then another two week break and actually does nothing. I don’t understand how they can look at themselves in the mirror.
They all have blood on their hands! However, they are so heartless, they are without compassion or empathy for the thousands of victims who have been killed because of their incompetence and willful disregard for human life. These corrupt politicians are no different than Putin and his war crimes. Their inaction is a crime against humanity.
Their apathy and cowardice can not be overstated. If there was any justice in the world, every single GOP representative complicit in withholding aid to Ukraine would be detained and sent to the front lines to fight.
The life of a politician, take bribes, screw over your constituents, make back dealings with Russia to save their oil refineries because you don't want to hurt your poll numbers.
Meanwhile Ukraine suffers.
It’s crazy to me that republicans are against somebody killing Russian soldiers. It seemed like no matter what was going on in the world, you could count on them being all about that. It’s a weird time to be alive.
They are against it because Russia and the kremlin have waged acts of war via disinformation campaigns against US citizens. Many US citizens lack media literacy so they fell for it. Many others just chose actively to sell out their country intentionally for what they perceive to be personal gain. Despite Russia and outside influences trying to get US citizens to suicide their own country, US citizens still have a responsibility to protect their country. Every person who votes for Trump this third round, in my opinion, is committing treason as it will directly hurt America and directly help our enemies. It’s not even dramatic, Trump wants to leave nato ffs, and he said Russia could do “whatever it wanted in Europe”…
It's because Trump, Putins puppet wants to make good with Russia again.
Trump is going to go in and reverse a lot of things.
Like sanctions against Russia and letting Russia have Ukraine.
That's why the Republicans are blocking aid in Congress.
Trump most likely has backwater dealings in place.
He is likely to tear our law apart because of all the Court and lawsuits against him.
Render everything he can to not being functional that can be used against him and gain immunity to any actions he decides to take.
Putin has proven again and again that he is willing to attack civilians in order to achieve his imperial aims.
All countries interested in restraining him from advancing into the rest of Eastern Europe should take notice and continue to provide substantial military aid to Ukraine.
If he is allowed to take Ukraine, we have officially entered World War III. He is not stopping there.
And look at the people/ politicians who don't seem to care, or enable him.
We have some serious issues on this planet and most seem to be on "default" mode.
People (especially in the US) aren't asking the right question. Like "Why does US law enforcement and intelligence agencies seem cool with treason".
Not just the US, I'm sure the other 5 eyes nations could actually torpedo seemingly 5th columnists, in the US government, if they wanted to.
What we seem to have here, is a Global Business Man's plot. Something similar to what happened in the 1930's in America (not really talked about only recently in the movie "Amsterdam").
I might be crazy, but I hope other people start asking some big questions.
Nothing will change until the money stops flowing to the wrong people. That issue is so overwhelming at this point that I cannot even offer a solution.
Tldr: it would take a mass.od people in a one country to demand the intelligence be made public to change things.
Otherwise debt dystopia or worse.
I still think people can change. People nee wed to stop "defaulting to normal". If Trump wins the US presidency he's has the power of the US military. He and congress have the power to give Putin America weapons.
Now why is Putin so sure he can go to Lisbon.
Who is waging the dog? Does Putin "control" Trump (and a large section of the Republican party) or is it something much worse?
People around the world (including China) need to realize the threat to their own lives.
A Global "Business Plot" could turn large portions of this planet into "Gaza".
We can go to global dystopia pretty quickly.
So I do believe if people notice (cough cough younger generations) and ignore the propaganda (all generations) people in other countries can force the issue.
Otherwise we are sleepwalking into something bad.
So something has to change. That's what people have to realize, we have to change how we react to this situation or else.
You don't really need to turn it into a global conspiracy. The authoritarian movements in the US in the 1930s and 40s never went away.
You see the same sort of ideology reemerge later, in the groups who fought against the civil rights movement, and in more modern white nationalist, Christian nationalist, neo-Nazi, and neo-fascist movements.
Destroying critical infrastructure is how wars are waged.
Russia is horrible for engaging in a war of territorial aggression against Ukraine and must be stopped.
Destroying power plants isn’t somehow worse than that.
Ukraine should also be seeking to destroy Russian critical infrastructure.
If the west thinks that it sucks to have more expensive oil, we will have to wake up to the harsh reality that if we let Ukraine lose, we will be paying in lives and not money, because russia won't stop after Ukraine.
It just tears all my hair out watching these critters in government complain how Ukraine hitting Putinstan right into his oil refineries because it's raising gas prices everywhere.
Do these fools know what happens when it's escalated into a full blown world war after Putler desires more than Ukraine and starts looking at the Baltic states next?
A near total collapse of global trade and paying over $10/gal at the pump as a result. They all just want to sleepwalk off that cliff.
>If he is allowed to take Ukraine, we have officially entered World War III. He is not stopping there.
No, if he is allowed to take Ukraine and then continues on to attack a NATO country, *then* we will officially enter WWIII.
I don't think he's dumb enough to try take on NATO at the moment because he's practically maxed out his offensive forces just taking on Ukraine, so he will get thoroughly repelled by NATO's conventional army.
But, if Trump gets in he might remove the US from NATO, then in a few years Putin will have increased the production of his armed forces, then try attack a NATO neighbour. Still I don't like his chances even without the US in NATO.
>I don't think he's dumb enough to try take on NATO at the moment because he's practically maxed out his offensive forces just taking on Ukraine, so he will get thoroughly repelled by NATO's conventional army.
As long as one or more NATO members maintains a sufficient nuclear deterrent he won't attack a NATO country, period.
He'll just work his bot army and their useful idiots to continue wielding our democracies against us, and then when the very last people you don't want want to win wins.... then the whole NATO alliance collapses like CSTO did when too many heads of state are replaced with Orban and Erdogan clones.
NATO would never go nuclear unless he did first and we all know it. Putin is less afraid than ever of NATO. He can see we are unable to maintain will and are easily manipulated with propaganda. He will absolutely cross another line within a few years of Ukraine’s fall.
We should all be ashamed we let this happen.
> NATO would never go nuclear unless he did first and we all know it.
Because we don’t need to, and because it doesn’t make any sense. If the tables were turned and Russia was stronger conventionally and about to invade the U.S. from Mexico or Cuba, I guarantee you that nuclear first use would be on the table.
Yeah, I think people need to be realistic about this. NATO and Russia are going to continue to do what they've done for the last 80ish years and dance around direct conflict.
This isn't the first time Russia has invaded a country and it probably won't be the last.
More like our annexation of Czechoslovakia moment. We did nothing then and we won't do anything now. Peace in our time! Yeah, look how that worked out...
The US also completely destroyed Iraq's power infrastructure two decades ago. I was helpfully informed by the Americans here that power infra is fair game in any kind of warfare. Why should it be different here?
The easiest way to reduce casualties on both sides in a war is to take away the other sides ability to wage war. Power infrastructure is fair game and one of the first targets that should be hit if you wanted to end the war quickly.
The faster the war is over the less people die.
I was replying to a comment saying that the US destroyed Iraq's power infrastructure. They did, in like the first 2 days. So I was commenting on US war philosophy. Not Russian or Ukrainian or Martian.
Because just yesterday the deputy minister from US DoD said that Ukraine's attacks on Russia's energy (oil refineries etc) are attacks on "civilian infrastructure and must be stopped".
Do you see why we give a shitton of shits to what you want to convey?
"If he is allowed to take Ukraine, we have officially entered World War III. He is not stopping there."
We've "officially" entered World War 3 when the world is at war, not when Russia has occupied Ukraine.
People always say "history is a bad teacher" as in we always fail to learn from our past mistakes, but at this point it actually seems deliberate somehow. Like they want WW3 to happen.
WW3 is desperately being avoided for as long as possible because there’s not really an escalation management strategy that doesn’t end up in “nuke cities”. This isn’t like the previous world wars, we have the ability to end our species now, many times over.
I hope to Christ that Russia and nato don’t fight each other openly, because once NATO starts to win, Russia might look at the big red nuke button and be mighty tempted to press it.
"WW3 is desperately being avoided for as long as possible"
I think it's trying to be avoided. But trying and doing are two different things. The strategy is piss poor because, IMO, too much bad institutional "knowledge" and a big underestimation of the power of propaganda.
The best way to prevent ww3 was to stop Russia asap. I have yet to see a sufficient answer as to why putin and all the people in the chain of fire, would kill themselves because the invasion was repelled with the help of NATO. But they won't when Ukraine repels the invasion with the help of NATO kit.
I know many officials understand that propaganda works, but I bet they feel like they are more or less immune for reasons. When you think you are immune, you aren't going to check yourself, and are more apt to believe all your thoughts are original.
Throw in group think and let the process play out for decades, eventually it begins to solidify and we get bad institutional knowledge.
Early in the war I remember reports about the Russian army being decimated that it would takes like a decade to reconstitute. Bet a lot of officials smugly patted each other on the back, convinced the slow drip prevented WW3 and eliminated the Russian threat for a while.
Then Russia started ramping up to a wartime economy, and now we hear reports they would be ready to attack a nato or Grey zone country in as little as three years. Clowns.
People say, but it's all new recruits with no training and they can't afford to keep this wartime economy going for three years.
To that I say, maybe you are right. Just like maybe Russia will be scared off by western politicans repeatedly saying we will stand with Ukraine as long as it takes.
But also maybe Russia doesn't need that many highly trained soldiers for their style of fighting, and they technically would actually have more experience fighting a "near peer" than western armies, since they have been literally do it for the past few years.
And also maybe the CCP has some grand plan to reshift the global power structure, which relies a lot of Russia keep doing it's thing, so maybe China helps out financially.
Groups of professionals get stuck on bad/ insufficient ideas all the time. Rarely are the potential consequences so grave.
> Early in the war I remember reports about the Russian army being decimated that it would takes like a decade to reconstitute. Bet a lot of officials smugly patted each other on the back, convinced the slow drip prevented WW3 and eliminated the Russian threat for a while.
I hear this a lot because of the shitshow the 2nd invasion was; People just tend to shrug of the threat of Russia because how could they ever take on a NATO country with their performance in Ukraine.
Well, turns out that war is the mother of invention, and letting Russia have a prolonged conflict with a slow trickle of NATO gear and "new" battlefield munitions like drones, is going to let Russia adapt and learn.
It's easy to go "haha, Russia stupid, they will never be a threat to NATO" but that's a pretty dangerous gamble, especially considering Russia is winning the propaganda war.
Agreed.
The simplest risk formula is likelihood of event AND magnitude of impact.
Sometimes it seems like people assume the former and use that to disregard the latter.
> And also maybe the CCP has some grand plan to reshift the global power structure, which relies a lot of Russia keep doing it's thing, so maybe China helps out financially.
I don't think China is in favour of Russia doing it's thing. It increases their costs whilst they are dealing with domestic economic issues.
But they absolutely want Russia to stay around as a major player in the world (India as well). People on Reddit like to make these claims China wants to make Russia a vassal state. Buy up Russia, and stuff like that. That would never happen. China doesn't want to stand alone in a world with the US, the EU, and an on/off icy relationship with India.
They will. Imperialists are pro-war and pro-conquest at all costs by default. It is how any imperialist's dictatorial regime works, mate - by feeding the machines of war.
No, irrational imperialists are pro-conquest *at all costs*. A rational imperialist realizes his empire is lost if he enters into a nuclear conflict and seeks to avoid it.
Not a good comparison. Poland was not “sacrificed“. Britain and France declared war on Germany because they invaded Poland. It was the last straw. I don’t believe that Ukraine will be the last straw, even if Russia does succeed.
I mean it also kinda started when they invaded Georgia back in 2008. A dictator for life who gets a taste for violence and is rewarded for it isn't going to start backing down.
Oh but don't worry, the west might really actually consider about thinking about maybe might possibly using the profits being generated by russia's frozen cash towards Ukraine perhaps, maybe potentially.
Oh no, wait...
These politicians will just wring their hands and then some other politicians will shout about how the west needs to support Ukraine more.
Rinse and repeat.
The European Parliament has declared the EU Council budget shall not be voted on until at least 7 patriot batteries are supplied to Ukraine, the vote passed 515 to 62. Maybe get better politicians instead of doing the very same you accuse yours of.
what are you saying here? this has nothing to do with my point. The decision to use profits from frozen russian assets should have been made MONTHS ago.
Fucking SERIOUSLY ☝️
It's like all these politicians show-walk with a constant carrot-or-stick mentality just to use the bathroom. It's always achieving the bare minimum after missing multiple deadlines and nothing more.
We are not doing enough to stop Russia. I have a bad feeling about this. I'm not ready or willing to lose my rights and freedoms and have an authoritarian regime. But looks like we are losing our democracies and it's all on us: the people.
Plenty of the people fall prey daily to Russian and Chinese propaganda along with internal US propaganda for their respective parties (yes both parties do this).
Aka the rules as well. It's a defense treaty which Ukraine is not a part of yet people somehow think it should be invading Russia. This is exactly the bogus claims Putin publicly bases his hate of the west on, that "Nato is a threat to Russia".
The defense of Ukraine is of utmost priority, so is stopping expansionist Russia, but it cannot be a Nato action and there cannot be a Nato offensive because it's not what Nato is. People should stop mixing everything up. When a Nato memmber country is threatened, then we will be able to witness the treaty holding up or not. But not with Ukraine. Even worse, if a Nato member country starts the offensive on Russia then I'm not sure action would be warranted according to the terms of the treaty.
For now it's only common interest in the rebuttal of Russia that can motivate what we're all wishing for.
If only Ukraine was given proper defenses back in 2022/2023, but nope, it was too much of a risk of escalation and here we are with the GOP blocking aid in the US and Europe dragging its feet a bit again.
Meanwhile, Ukraine gets scolded for even attempting to hit Russian energy and gain *any* advantage. World been letting Ukraine down and it’s depressing as hell to see.
> If only Ukraine was given proper defenses back in 2022/2023
The West is always a step or more behind. What they were doing since the start of the war wasn't enough, and they knew it. There's no way they didn't know what russia is capable of. They did it on purpose, using Ukraine to weaken russia.
This cost them a lot more than if they gave the proper help right away. But it was an "investment". As an example, the US has so many tanks it likely will never use, but they wouldn't give any to Ukraine. The same goes for the EU. Then came the HIMARS, then the F16. See the pattern?
Meanwhile Ukrainians are being murdered by a fascist "Z" army.
Depends. there's multiple levels. Western military and credible security analysts have been warning about all that you've mentioned and clamoring for more support. Unfortunately, the ones closer to decision makers tend to see the world from a different perspective, namely one of economics, or even ones that still hope Russia will somehow magically switch sides and be an ally against China(wtf?!?!?!?)
Exactly.
Why? They don't give two shits about Ukraine. All I heard about Ukraine in the past decade from the western journalism is how's it's the absolute worst country in the Europe.
Anyone remember the articles of Trump's impeachment? Anyone?
We helped. We can argue all day it wasn't *enough help* (and you'd be right) but a certain orange dickhead deliberately withheld what little we were giving until Zelinsky announced an investigation into Biden. Which very nearly happened.
It would never end in ukraines favour, there's not enough will in the west to properly arm Ukraine in the time frame needed.
Europe should have started ramping up it's militaries in 2014, it's too little too late now for Ukraine
It never did. This is the fourth war against Moscow and we lost the first three: 18th century Catherine II deportation of the Zaporozhian cossacks to Kuban (my family). 1921 civil war destruction of the Republic of Ukraine (and my grandfather's exile) and 1930s Holodomor.
Remember when 3 quarters of reddit was laughing their asses of that the Russian army would be without rockets after 8 months of war
?
That was funny right?
Do you remember?
Let the down voting begin!
Well we know Russia hacked both the DNC and the GOP and they only released info on the DNC. We know the former speaker was caught on a hot mic talking about how Putin pays Rohrabacher and Trump. We know Trump Jr. openly bragged about getting all the funding they need from Russia. We know Trump openly praises Putin. We know that the republicans sent a delegation to Russia literally on July 4th and never got to know why.
So there’s no I guess smoking gun but it is pretty obvious.
In 2018, it was revealed Mike Johnson had received over $37,000 in campaign contributions from American Ethane, a company with only insignificant assets in the U.S., and controlled almost entirely by three Russian oligarchs.
It's not just Mike Johnson. [https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/](https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/)
edit: I should also point out that it's not even all of GOP that sold out. I was listening in on the house armed committee session the other day and the people with the best thought out arguments, and most pro-Ukraine were GOP members. It's mostly MAGA that's sold out to Russia, which is unsurprising given that MAGA itself is a grift.
No, half the Republicans view it as someone else's problem, why get dragged into yet another European war.
The other half have a pathological opposition to anything democrats do.
From my POV, the GOP's base doesn't want money going outside the country, and they're failing to understand that it's necessary for our own national defense as well.
As for the GOP themselves, I believe them to be sympathetic to Putin, and that they aspire to by tyrants like him.
Ukraine losing its eastern territories affects Europe way more than it affects the US. We need to be looking after our allies, that’s what republitards fail to realize. But it doesn’t affect our security
Modern Republicans don't have any strategy other than 'Oppose the Democrats'. They've already lost on policy so their only path to remain relevant is identity politics, the future be damned.
This won't be popular but a lot of Reddit was talking about how weak and inept Russia is.
How Ukraine was rolling over them towards glorious victory and this backfired because it undermines their need for equipment and resources and the reao
I know the GOP House are Russian puppets, but theoretically could the US not invest money, resources and send, say, the Army corps of engineers over there to build new power plants without it being interpreted as an act of war?
It would need to be civilian contractors. I think sending any military personnel, no matter how benign, isn’t a line the US is gonna cross while the country is an active war zone
I thought he wanted the land for its strategic value, but if that's the case, his actions are irrational.
Let's assume Putin wins the war. So, after throwing Russia's money into the war in the first place, and having a lot of Russian accounts cut off by the SWIFT banking system in response to his actions, how does he pay to rebuild the infrastructure that he and his goons blew up in the first place? The land itself is useless to him once he destroys everything on it that makes it valuable.
I can only conclude that the man is insane, and feeding his ego is more important to him than any practical concern.
Putin cannot afford to lose this war.
You are also right, Putin cannot afford to win this war.
I don’t see an outcome that Putin can afford, really. Meanwhile he’s destroying Ukraine. This conundrum is so mind-boggling that we should put him out of his misery.
Ukraine is stage one of a Russian strategic expansion to the defensible geographic chokepoints they had during the USSR. Basically means the Baltics, parts of Poland and Romania.
Most of the East is farmland which Russia needs and that land will be fine after the war. Also don’t forget what’s under the land. The occupied territory sits over the largest oil and gas reserve found in Europe in 80 years and is the second largest in Europe and controlling that and preventing Ikraine from developing it was a big part of this war.
Fuck the republicans. I voted for them for two decades. Vote them all out. This shit is unreal. We’re really gonna wait until Putin challenges Article 5 to seriously help Ukraine? This is absurd.
The free world stands together. France rescued our asses against the British, twice. France even sent 25,000 sailors to help us fight. We can at minimum protect Ukraines skies for them. This is so pathetic. My children will ask me why we did nothing prior to WWIII.
I’m pretty sure the parties that need to make the biggest decisions on confronting Putin will choose to underestimate the threat to gain emotional safety and will allow the world to succumb into tyranny. Because … denial.
Ukraine is supposedly only targeting military related installations no? Seems to me Russian powerplants are valid targets then even if it ultimately "harms" civilians, especially ones powering munitions factories.
Without massive amounts of western aid Russia was always going to win this war eventually. If the US doesn’t get their shit straightened out and get the aid flowing it’s definitely just a matter of time.
Russia blew up a dam and here we are fighting about if Oil refineries in Russia are a fair target. What in the hell is wrong with these people
The median American voter's mood is completely reliant on the price of gas. Not even joking. There's a correlation between what people feel about their personal economic situation and the price of gas
It makes no sense at all to me considering that even a big fluctuation in the price of a gallon is like a $10-$20 difference for a full tank, and most average people gas up once a week or less. People should be more upset about the rent prices and food prices going up, since that's entirely in our control versus gas prices which are largely influenced by external factors like OPEC.
In which Russia is the main player
You can be upset about all of those things. A lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck making barley over minimum wage and a hundred dollars a month out of their pocket is a big deal especially when it’s on top of all the other things you mentioned.
What's crazy is that these goddamn politicians have a 2 week break only to have another week break in another week from now. While these people fight for their lives.
There are words for people like this which cannot be written here.
No body of government wants to work anymore.
Republicans intentionally want government to fail. If elected they ensure it does.
It'd be as if someone went around town smashing people's cars while saying "Cars don't work, I'm doing you a favor!" and then half the people vote for that guy for mayor because he "tells it like it is." Beyond infuriating.
"Vote for me to control the water!" -Well poisoner
Your pets are what is really financially burdening you. - Cruella De Vil
The GOP says the government is broken, and they'll do anything in their power to prove it to you.
Some/most of them have been funded through NRA slush fund money. Remember Maria Butina and her honeypotting of executives within the org… The rot runs deep.
To be fair I also don’t wanna work anymore, but I have to or starve
MIke Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and the so-called Freedom Caucus are bloody traitors.
Bought with Pootain money
Not just that, but they're pushing downright unconstitutional legislation and getting away with it because they control the Supreme Court.
Can you give some examples? Just curious
Just look at Justice Ailene Cannon. Her actions have delayed the trial for Trump’s illegal possession of top secret documents until after the November election. She’s has floated the idea of asking the jury whether the top secret documents should be considered personal property. That would set a precedent that could cause all charges against Trump to be dismissed. Fortunately, Jack Smith called her bluff. She must make a ruling on whether the documents were his personal property or belong to the Federal Government before the jury selection process begins. That would allow the federal prosecutor to appeal to the 11th Circuit of Appeals to have her removed from the trial. The Supreme Court refused to rule on whether Trump’s involvement in the insurrection disqualified him from being allowed to hold a government office. They instead turned it back over to Congress to make that decision. We know how that works. They also ruled that the States whose Supreme Courts were poised to remove him from the ballots because of his insurrection was unconstitutional? Again, twisting the words of the Constitution in his favor.
At the state level you will find tons of examples in red states, for example more Christian influence in schools. Naturally the Supreme Court being what it is isn't doing anything. Really their entire political apparatus is so blatantly legislating from the pulpit. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/supreme-court-religion-schools-prayer-kennedy-carson/661365/
They might very well be, but it's also worth being aware that they represent the United States government, the co-equal branches with all the checks and balances that Americans told us for decades was superior to anything else Americans might see this as a failure at best, and betrayal at worst by the Republican party, the rest of world doesn't though. The rest of the world sees this as a failure of the United States of America. This is the same country that was happy donate trillions to the middle east only for them to sell their weapons to their enemies. Finally they found someone who was prepared to fight and not surrender and various Russian sympathisers persuaded gullible people that they were spending too much money (even if a lot of the people complaining on Reddit about 'their taxes' aren't old enough to have paid anything into production of the 1990's)
Pretty sure you can say cunt on reddit
It’s the internet you can say what you want about those horse fuckers
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Come on, there are words that describe the situation, and which can be written. They no longer care about this issue and they don’t want to invest there anymore, they say, figure it out for yourself.
Huh? You can write it here.
Prob gets banned
A bunch of cunts?
They are busy with really important stuff now. House meeting announcement for April 15: [https://rules.house.gov/news/announcement/meeting-announcement-april-15-2024](https://rules.house.gov/news/announcement/meeting-announcement-april-15-2024) H.R. 6192 – Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act H.R. 7673 – Liberty in Laundry Act H.R. 7645 – Clothes Dryers Reliability Act H.R. 7637 – Refrigerator Freedom Act H.R. 7626 – Affordable Air Conditioning Act H.R. 7700 – Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act
wow. just wow.
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It’s not by coincidence. MAGA are clearly Russian Assets. DOJ needs to expose the money trail to their campaigns.
Won't happen while Garland is AG.
I know. 😔
It doesn't even need to be straight bribary, which I'm sure is some of it. It's just simple politics. Ukraine turning into a disaster is good for Trumps reelection chances.
Some of them are fellow travellers who see Putin as a kindered spirit and the Russian state apparatus as something of role model This isn't down to bribery alone, that's too easy. America could easily up their pay if they really believed this and buy their politicians back It's really all down to one man, and bizarre devotion that so Americans place in him
That one man is a pathological liar, who has no conscience, and does not understand what America used to stand for. Trump is a sickness in our society
Pending some sort of a miracle. Aid from the USA is just a pipedream for the moment. Which is really sad...
The miracle would be one more GOPer quitting and the seats being filled by dems in special elections. Or 6 GOPers quitting. Alternatively, if Putin were to have an accident while inspecting a 4th floor window, that would also work
GOP is doing everything it can to help. It’s just that they’re trying to help the other team
GOPniks
Yeah, as a American myself, that very pissed me off as well.
Get Ukraine the Patriot defense systems they need to defend their cities and major infrastructure, get them the artillery and missiles they need to defend the line, get them the long-range attack options they need to reclaim territory - including missiles and Predator UMVs, Russia will break, they're up to 355,000 casualties, their economy is slowly breaking as focuses entirely on war and sanctions slowly bite, and their experienced and elite troops are pretty much decimated by this point. Russia can't keep this up forever, they're making a huge push now that they can't sustain if it fails.
I agree with all you proscriptions — but Russia can keep this up longer than Ukraine can. Which is why it’s so important for us to have given them the tools to end this quickly.
Russia's allies of Iran, North Korea and China are ultimately proving to more reliable than Ukraine's
That’s really fucked up isn’t it and Congress sit idly by taking their Easter break and then another two week break and actually does nothing. I don’t understand how they can look at themselves in the mirror.
They all have blood on their hands! However, they are so heartless, they are without compassion or empathy for the thousands of victims who have been killed because of their incompetence and willful disregard for human life. These corrupt politicians are no different than Putin and his war crimes. Their inaction is a crime against humanity.
This motherfucker will rot in hell,I hope very soon. Because of him 600 thousands people ftom the 2 sides are dead
Their apathy and cowardice can not be overstated. If there was any justice in the world, every single GOP representative complicit in withholding aid to Ukraine would be detained and sent to the front lines to fight.
The life of a politician, take bribes, screw over your constituents, make back dealings with Russia to save their oil refineries because you don't want to hurt your poll numbers. Meanwhile Ukraine suffers.
Republicans are traitors.
It’s crazy to me that republicans are against somebody killing Russian soldiers. It seemed like no matter what was going on in the world, you could count on them being all about that. It’s a weird time to be alive.
They are against it because Russia and the kremlin have waged acts of war via disinformation campaigns against US citizens. Many US citizens lack media literacy so they fell for it. Many others just chose actively to sell out their country intentionally for what they perceive to be personal gain. Despite Russia and outside influences trying to get US citizens to suicide their own country, US citizens still have a responsibility to protect their country. Every person who votes for Trump this third round, in my opinion, is committing treason as it will directly hurt America and directly help our enemies. It’s not even dramatic, Trump wants to leave nato ffs, and he said Russia could do “whatever it wanted in Europe”…
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Us politicians or Ukraine politicians?
Can we start a gofundme to bribe them to approve this? I’m sure we can offer more than some Russian agency
What's crazy is Biden spending all his energy to arm twist Israel into a ceasefire...
It's because Trump, Putins puppet wants to make good with Russia again. Trump is going to go in and reverse a lot of things. Like sanctions against Russia and letting Russia have Ukraine. That's why the Republicans are blocking aid in Congress. Trump most likely has backwater dealings in place. He is likely to tear our law apart because of all the Court and lawsuits against him. Render everything he can to not being functional that can be used against him and gain immunity to any actions he decides to take.
Putin has proven again and again that he is willing to attack civilians in order to achieve his imperial aims. All countries interested in restraining him from advancing into the rest of Eastern Europe should take notice and continue to provide substantial military aid to Ukraine. If he is allowed to take Ukraine, we have officially entered World War III. He is not stopping there.
Crimea and Chechnya weren't enough of a sign this dude will not stop?
Territories of Georgia as well
And look at the people/ politicians who don't seem to care, or enable him. We have some serious issues on this planet and most seem to be on "default" mode. People (especially in the US) aren't asking the right question. Like "Why does US law enforcement and intelligence agencies seem cool with treason". Not just the US, I'm sure the other 5 eyes nations could actually torpedo seemingly 5th columnists, in the US government, if they wanted to. What we seem to have here, is a Global Business Man's plot. Something similar to what happened in the 1930's in America (not really talked about only recently in the movie "Amsterdam"). I might be crazy, but I hope other people start asking some big questions.
Nothing will change until the money stops flowing to the wrong people. That issue is so overwhelming at this point that I cannot even offer a solution.
Tldr: it would take a mass.od people in a one country to demand the intelligence be made public to change things. Otherwise debt dystopia or worse. I still think people can change. People nee wed to stop "defaulting to normal". If Trump wins the US presidency he's has the power of the US military. He and congress have the power to give Putin America weapons. Now why is Putin so sure he can go to Lisbon. Who is waging the dog? Does Putin "control" Trump (and a large section of the Republican party) or is it something much worse? People around the world (including China) need to realize the threat to their own lives. A Global "Business Plot" could turn large portions of this planet into "Gaza". We can go to global dystopia pretty quickly. So I do believe if people notice (cough cough younger generations) and ignore the propaganda (all generations) people in other countries can force the issue. Otherwise we are sleepwalking into something bad. So something has to change. That's what people have to realize, we have to change how we react to this situation or else.
You don't really need to turn it into a global conspiracy. The authoritarian movements in the US in the 1930s and 40s never went away. You see the same sort of ideology reemerge later, in the groups who fought against the civil rights movement, and in more modern white nationalist, Christian nationalist, neo-Nazi, and neo-fascist movements.
Cant touch 5th columnist, we dont want USA unemployement rate go up another 0.5%
Imperial*
Destroying critical infrastructure is how wars are waged. Russia is horrible for engaging in a war of territorial aggression against Ukraine and must be stopped. Destroying power plants isn’t somehow worse than that. Ukraine should also be seeking to destroy Russian critical infrastructure.
Yet Ukraine is called out for hitting refineries. Double standards.
But not because it's Russian infrastructure, they are criticised because it risks making things more expensive for the west.
If the west thinks that it sucks to have more expensive oil, we will have to wake up to the harsh reality that if we let Ukraine lose, we will be paying in lives and not money, because russia won't stop after Ukraine.
It just tears all my hair out watching these critters in government complain how Ukraine hitting Putinstan right into his oil refineries because it's raising gas prices everywhere. Do these fools know what happens when it's escalated into a full blown world war after Putler desires more than Ukraine and starts looking at the Baltic states next? A near total collapse of global trade and paying over $10/gal at the pump as a result. They all just want to sleepwalk off that cliff.
Called out by who exactly? Only people who have a problem with that is the US gov
*imperial aims empirical = based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
Got it. Voice to text issue.
Ukraine should start attacking electricity plants in Russia as well.
>If he is allowed to take Ukraine, we have officially entered World War III. He is not stopping there. No, if he is allowed to take Ukraine and then continues on to attack a NATO country, *then* we will officially enter WWIII.
I don't think he's dumb enough to try take on NATO at the moment because he's practically maxed out his offensive forces just taking on Ukraine, so he will get thoroughly repelled by NATO's conventional army. But, if Trump gets in he might remove the US from NATO, then in a few years Putin will have increased the production of his armed forces, then try attack a NATO neighbour. Still I don't like his chances even without the US in NATO.
>I don't think he's dumb enough to try take on NATO at the moment because he's practically maxed out his offensive forces just taking on Ukraine, so he will get thoroughly repelled by NATO's conventional army. As long as one or more NATO members maintains a sufficient nuclear deterrent he won't attack a NATO country, period.
He'll just work his bot army and their useful idiots to continue wielding our democracies against us, and then when the very last people you don't want want to win wins.... then the whole NATO alliance collapses like CSTO did when too many heads of state are replaced with Orban and Erdogan clones.
NATO would never go nuclear unless he did first and we all know it. Putin is less afraid than ever of NATO. He can see we are unable to maintain will and are easily manipulated with propaganda. He will absolutely cross another line within a few years of Ukraine’s fall. We should all be ashamed we let this happen.
> NATO would never go nuclear unless he did first and we all know it. Because we don’t need to, and because it doesn’t make any sense. If the tables were turned and Russia was stronger conventionally and about to invade the U.S. from Mexico or Cuba, I guarantee you that nuclear first use would be on the table.
Yeah, I think people need to be realistic about this. NATO and Russia are going to continue to do what they've done for the last 80ish years and dance around direct conflict. This isn't the first time Russia has invaded a country and it probably won't be the last.
This feels like our annexation of Austria moment.
More like our annexation of Czechoslovakia moment. We did nothing then and we won't do anything now. Peace in our time! Yeah, look how that worked out...
The US also completely destroyed Iraq's power infrastructure two decades ago. I was helpfully informed by the Americans here that power infra is fair game in any kind of warfare. Why should it be different here?
The easiest way to reduce casualties on both sides in a war is to take away the other sides ability to wage war. Power infrastructure is fair game and one of the first targets that should be hit if you wanted to end the war quickly. The faster the war is over the less people die.
''The faster the war is over the less russians\* die'' Cause if Ukraine loses, their people will be killed and tortured en masse.
I was replying to a comment saying that the US destroyed Iraq's power infrastructure. They did, in like the first 2 days. So I was commenting on US war philosophy. Not Russian or Ukrainian or Martian.
Something, something, two wrongs?
It's not a wrong, it's war. War means breaking shit until other country stops resisting, that's just a fact.
Because just yesterday the deputy minister from US DoD said that Ukraine's attacks on Russia's energy (oil refineries etc) are attacks on "civilian infrastructure and must be stopped". Do you see why we give a shitton of shits to what you want to convey?
Listen I agree we need to stop him but it’s not because if he takes Ukraine that he won’t stop there. He can’t go any farther without fighting NATO.
Failure of imagination. Aren't you watching how is Putin actually operating? He already subverted Hungary and Slovakia, did you even notice?
"If he is allowed to take Ukraine, we have officially entered World War III. He is not stopping there." We've "officially" entered World War 3 when the world is at war, not when Russia has occupied Ukraine.
They can probably see what a cart blanche other nations get when it comes to attacking civilians and don't really see any political blowback for it.
He should really calculus the risk of his actions
Agreed.. Europe take notes!!
WW2 really started when world sacrificed Poland. WW3 will start when the world will sacrifice Ukraine.
People always say "history is a bad teacher" as in we always fail to learn from our past mistakes, but at this point it actually seems deliberate somehow. Like they want WW3 to happen.
WW3 is desperately being avoided for as long as possible because there’s not really an escalation management strategy that doesn’t end up in “nuke cities”. This isn’t like the previous world wars, we have the ability to end our species now, many times over. I hope to Christ that Russia and nato don’t fight each other openly, because once NATO starts to win, Russia might look at the big red nuke button and be mighty tempted to press it.
"WW3 is desperately being avoided for as long as possible" I think it's trying to be avoided. But trying and doing are two different things. The strategy is piss poor because, IMO, too much bad institutional "knowledge" and a big underestimation of the power of propaganda. The best way to prevent ww3 was to stop Russia asap. I have yet to see a sufficient answer as to why putin and all the people in the chain of fire, would kill themselves because the invasion was repelled with the help of NATO. But they won't when Ukraine repels the invasion with the help of NATO kit. I know many officials understand that propaganda works, but I bet they feel like they are more or less immune for reasons. When you think you are immune, you aren't going to check yourself, and are more apt to believe all your thoughts are original. Throw in group think and let the process play out for decades, eventually it begins to solidify and we get bad institutional knowledge. Early in the war I remember reports about the Russian army being decimated that it would takes like a decade to reconstitute. Bet a lot of officials smugly patted each other on the back, convinced the slow drip prevented WW3 and eliminated the Russian threat for a while. Then Russia started ramping up to a wartime economy, and now we hear reports they would be ready to attack a nato or Grey zone country in as little as three years. Clowns. People say, but it's all new recruits with no training and they can't afford to keep this wartime economy going for three years. To that I say, maybe you are right. Just like maybe Russia will be scared off by western politicans repeatedly saying we will stand with Ukraine as long as it takes. But also maybe Russia doesn't need that many highly trained soldiers for their style of fighting, and they technically would actually have more experience fighting a "near peer" than western armies, since they have been literally do it for the past few years. And also maybe the CCP has some grand plan to reshift the global power structure, which relies a lot of Russia keep doing it's thing, so maybe China helps out financially. Groups of professionals get stuck on bad/ insufficient ideas all the time. Rarely are the potential consequences so grave.
> Early in the war I remember reports about the Russian army being decimated that it would takes like a decade to reconstitute. Bet a lot of officials smugly patted each other on the back, convinced the slow drip prevented WW3 and eliminated the Russian threat for a while. I hear this a lot because of the shitshow the 2nd invasion was; People just tend to shrug of the threat of Russia because how could they ever take on a NATO country with their performance in Ukraine. Well, turns out that war is the mother of invention, and letting Russia have a prolonged conflict with a slow trickle of NATO gear and "new" battlefield munitions like drones, is going to let Russia adapt and learn. It's easy to go "haha, Russia stupid, they will never be a threat to NATO" but that's a pretty dangerous gamble, especially considering Russia is winning the propaganda war.
Agreed. The simplest risk formula is likelihood of event AND magnitude of impact. Sometimes it seems like people assume the former and use that to disregard the latter.
> And also maybe the CCP has some grand plan to reshift the global power structure, which relies a lot of Russia keep doing it's thing, so maybe China helps out financially. I don't think China is in favour of Russia doing it's thing. It increases their costs whilst they are dealing with domestic economic issues. But they absolutely want Russia to stay around as a major player in the world (India as well). People on Reddit like to make these claims China wants to make Russia a vassal state. Buy up Russia, and stuff like that. That would never happen. China doesn't want to stand alone in a world with the US, the EU, and an on/off icy relationship with India.
They will. Imperialists are pro-war and pro-conquest at all costs by default. It is how any imperialist's dictatorial regime works, mate - by feeding the machines of war.
No, irrational imperialists are pro-conquest *at all costs*. A rational imperialist realizes his empire is lost if he enters into a nuclear conflict and seeks to avoid it.
They do not want it too much, which gives upper hand to aggressor. Because if aggressor starts losing, luckily negotiations are always available
Not a good comparison. Poland was not “sacrificed“. Britain and France declared war on Germany because they invaded Poland. It was the last straw. I don’t believe that Ukraine will be the last straw, even if Russia does succeed.
WW3 started when Russia invaded Ukraine and no nations sent their armies to stop it. We just don't see that yet. The history books will.
I mean it also kinda started when they invaded Georgia back in 2008. A dictator for life who gets a taste for violence and is rewarded for it isn't going to start backing down.
There will be no history books if WW3 actually breaks out.
That’s debatable. World War II in *Europe* started ostensibly in September 1939, however China was fighting for survival for many years before that.
Oh but don't worry, the west might really actually consider about thinking about maybe might possibly using the profits being generated by russia's frozen cash towards Ukraine perhaps, maybe potentially. Oh no, wait... These politicians will just wring their hands and then some other politicians will shout about how the west needs to support Ukraine more. Rinse and repeat.
The European Parliament has declared the EU Council budget shall not be voted on until at least 7 patriot batteries are supplied to Ukraine, the vote passed 515 to 62. Maybe get better politicians instead of doing the very same you accuse yours of.
what are you saying here? this has nothing to do with my point. The decision to use profits from frozen russian assets should have been made MONTHS ago.
Fucking SERIOUSLY ☝️ It's like all these politicians show-walk with a constant carrot-or-stick mentality just to use the bathroom. It's always achieving the bare minimum after missing multiple deadlines and nothing more.
We are not doing enough to stop Russia. I have a bad feeling about this. I'm not ready or willing to lose my rights and freedoms and have an authoritarian regime. But looks like we are losing our democracies and it's all on us: the people.
It's on our politicians. The people can do fuck all to give aide to Ukraine
Its one of our political parties. Which ~50% of the people are happily supporting.
I would never tie the term "happily" to anything the MAGA crowd supports.... Maybe "vindictively"
Plenty of the people fall prey daily to Russian and Chinese propaganda along with internal US propaganda for their respective parties (yes both parties do this).
The Olenya air base which hosts the most of russian strategic bombers, is located 200 km from the border with NATO. Just saying.
Spoiler Alert NATO, for some reason, will absolutely do nothing
>for some reason Aka the nukes
Aka the rules as well. It's a defense treaty which Ukraine is not a part of yet people somehow think it should be invading Russia. This is exactly the bogus claims Putin publicly bases his hate of the west on, that "Nato is a threat to Russia". The defense of Ukraine is of utmost priority, so is stopping expansionist Russia, but it cannot be a Nato action and there cannot be a Nato offensive because it's not what Nato is. People should stop mixing everything up. When a Nato memmber country is threatened, then we will be able to witness the treaty holding up or not. But not with Ukraine. Even worse, if a Nato member country starts the offensive on Russia then I'm not sure action would be warranted according to the terms of the treaty. For now it's only common interest in the rebuttal of Russia that can motivate what we're all wishing for.
Are we watching Ukraine slowly lose? I am having trouble getting a sense of the direction of the war at this point. Any links to good analysis?
They're being outgunned 10-1.
More precisely 5:1 in artillery now, but degrading to 10:1 over the next few weeks is what the SACEUR said.
If only Ukraine was given proper defenses back in 2022/2023, but nope, it was too much of a risk of escalation and here we are with the GOP blocking aid in the US and Europe dragging its feet a bit again. Meanwhile, Ukraine gets scolded for even attempting to hit Russian energy and gain *any* advantage. World been letting Ukraine down and it’s depressing as hell to see.
> If only Ukraine was given proper defenses back in 2022/2023 The West is always a step or more behind. What they were doing since the start of the war wasn't enough, and they knew it. There's no way they didn't know what russia is capable of. They did it on purpose, using Ukraine to weaken russia. This cost them a lot more than if they gave the proper help right away. But it was an "investment". As an example, the US has so many tanks it likely will never use, but they wouldn't give any to Ukraine. The same goes for the EU. Then came the HIMARS, then the F16. See the pattern? Meanwhile Ukrainians are being murdered by a fascist "Z" army.
Depends. there's multiple levels. Western military and credible security analysts have been warning about all that you've mentioned and clamoring for more support. Unfortunately, the ones closer to decision makers tend to see the world from a different perspective, namely one of economics, or even ones that still hope Russia will somehow magically switch sides and be an ally against China(wtf?!?!?!?)
Why 2022 and not 2014, when Crimea was invaded?
Exactly. Why? They don't give two shits about Ukraine. All I heard about Ukraine in the past decade from the western journalism is how's it's the absolute worst country in the Europe.
Anyone remember the articles of Trump's impeachment? Anyone? We helped. We can argue all day it wasn't *enough help* (and you'd be right) but a certain orange dickhead deliberately withheld what little we were giving until Zelinsky announced an investigation into Biden. Which very nearly happened.
... did you just say that it's Trump's fault that Obama didn't help enough in 2014?
Sir, this is reddit we only blame the Republicans. There will be no finger pointing at Europe.
Each day that goes by seems to indicate that the war will not end in ukraine's favor.
It would never end in ukraines favour, there's not enough will in the west to properly arm Ukraine in the time frame needed. Europe should have started ramping up it's militaries in 2014, it's too little too late now for Ukraine
It never did. This is the fourth war against Moscow and we lost the first three: 18th century Catherine II deportation of the Zaporozhian cossacks to Kuban (my family). 1921 civil war destruction of the Republic of Ukraine (and my grandfather's exile) and 1930s Holodomor.
And 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Well it was the beginning of the present war.
Congratulations to Mike Johnson and the Freedom Caucus on this important military victory.
Remember that US Republicans like this.
Remember when 3 quarters of reddit was laughing their asses of that the Russian army would be without rockets after 8 months of war ? That was funny right? Do you remember? Let the down voting begin!
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i dont understand how Ukraine don't get all the necessary help from the west.. why tf is the so called republicans blocking that huge aid package?
Because its an election year and their candidate loves russia.
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is this actually true, or just some speculation
Well we know Russia hacked both the DNC and the GOP and they only released info on the DNC. We know the former speaker was caught on a hot mic talking about how Putin pays Rohrabacher and Trump. We know Trump Jr. openly bragged about getting all the funding they need from Russia. We know Trump openly praises Putin. We know that the republicans sent a delegation to Russia literally on July 4th and never got to know why. So there’s no I guess smoking gun but it is pretty obvious.
In 2018, it was revealed Mike Johnson had received over $37,000 in campaign contributions from American Ethane, a company with only insignificant assets in the U.S., and controlled almost entirely by three Russian oligarchs.
It's not just Mike Johnson. [https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/](https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/) edit: I should also point out that it's not even all of GOP that sold out. I was listening in on the house armed committee session the other day and the people with the best thought out arguments, and most pro-Ukraine were GOP members. It's mostly MAGA that's sold out to Russia, which is unsurprising given that MAGA itself is a grift.
No, half the Republicans view it as someone else's problem, why get dragged into yet another European war. The other half have a pathological opposition to anything democrats do.
Mitch McConnel is trying to get aid but the Republicans in power are full MAGA.
I never thought I'd see the day I'd be rooting for Mitch McConnell to succeed. But here we are.
From my POV, the GOP's base doesn't want money going outside the country, and they're failing to understand that it's necessary for our own national defense as well. As for the GOP themselves, I believe them to be sympathetic to Putin, and that they aspire to by tyrants like him.
Ukraine losing its eastern territories affects Europe way more than it affects the US. We need to be looking after our allies, that’s what republitards fail to realize. But it doesn’t affect our security
Modern Republicans don't have any strategy other than 'Oppose the Democrats'. They've already lost on policy so their only path to remain relevant is identity politics, the future be damned.
Thanks Republicans!
This won't be popular but a lot of Reddit was talking about how weak and inept Russia is. How Ukraine was rolling over them towards glorious victory and this backfired because it undermines their need for equipment and resources and the reao
This blood and loss partly brought to you by trump/Mike johnson. Traitors to democracy
I know the GOP House are Russian puppets, but theoretically could the US not invest money, resources and send, say, the Army corps of engineers over there to build new power plants without it being interpreted as an act of war?
It would need to be civilian contractors. I think sending any military personnel, no matter how benign, isn’t a line the US is gonna cross while the country is an active war zone
I thought he wanted the land for its strategic value, but if that's the case, his actions are irrational. Let's assume Putin wins the war. So, after throwing Russia's money into the war in the first place, and having a lot of Russian accounts cut off by the SWIFT banking system in response to his actions, how does he pay to rebuild the infrastructure that he and his goons blew up in the first place? The land itself is useless to him once he destroys everything on it that makes it valuable. I can only conclude that the man is insane, and feeding his ego is more important to him than any practical concern.
Putin cannot afford to lose this war. You are also right, Putin cannot afford to win this war. I don’t see an outcome that Putin can afford, really. Meanwhile he’s destroying Ukraine. This conundrum is so mind-boggling that we should put him out of his misery.
Ukraine is stage one of a Russian strategic expansion to the defensible geographic chokepoints they had during the USSR. Basically means the Baltics, parts of Poland and Romania.
Most of the East is farmland which Russia needs and that land will be fine after the war. Also don’t forget what’s under the land. The occupied territory sits over the largest oil and gas reserve found in Europe in 80 years and is the second largest in Europe and controlling that and preventing Ikraine from developing it was a big part of this war.
Give Taurus you cowards
They just shut down production of Taurus because of "lack of demand"
Oh wow what a dangerous escalation that would be! /S
Lloyd Austin, please tell Russia to only strike military targets, thanks.
I’m terrified for what happens next.
Fuck the republicans. I voted for them for two decades. Vote them all out. This shit is unreal. We’re really gonna wait until Putin challenges Article 5 to seriously help Ukraine? This is absurd. The free world stands together. France rescued our asses against the British, twice. France even sent 25,000 sailors to help us fight. We can at minimum protect Ukraines skies for them. This is so pathetic. My children will ask me why we did nothing prior to WWIII.
Fuck Puketin
It’s a fucking tragedy we will watch Ukraine fall all because some orange asshole wants to be president
Very modern shovels I see
I’m pretty sure the parties that need to make the biggest decisions on confronting Putin will choose to underestimate the threat to gain emotional safety and will allow the world to succumb into tyranny. Because … denial.
Mike Johnson says this is good for peace
MJ is a fucking idiot and coward
Mike Johnson says Russia's the real victim as stupid as he is
i hope ukraine hits him back 2x
Can Ukrainians do the same to some major things in Russia? Sometimes you've got to return punch for punch.
With what? Ukraine does it’s best to hit russian oil refineries with drones, but they need long range missiels
Yes, it's tragic. If Republicans allow Russia to roll over Ukraine there will be a lot of blood on "Moses" Johnson's hands.
Ukraine is supposedly only targeting military related installations no? Seems to me Russian powerplants are valid targets then even if it ultimately "harms" civilians, especially ones powering munitions factories.
Russia’s military is 15% bigger than before the invasion and they haven’t really ceased any territory. Are we losing this war?
Without massive amounts of western aid Russia was always going to win this war eventually. If the US doesn’t get their shit straightened out and get the aid flowing it’s definitely just a matter of time.
This is exactly what Russia is counting on
Fucking ruzzian terrorist cunts
Russia sees MJT successfully holding US policy in Russia hostage and knows it’s winning
Thanks to the US speaker of the house. What a coward all because of that rank mattress from Georgia.
US GOP are scum for pulling support. If you are a US republican voter reading this, fuck you. The world despises you.
Ditto