I love the Biden call out today. They literally stand for and run on nothing. They run on Dems. Biden is proud to run on a jobs investment bill, and voting rights. Dems have nothing to be ashamed of just because FoxNews and Trumpers are going to talk crap either way. I also love how Cornyn then took to the floor to say that actually the Repugs are proud to run on expanding the 2nd amendment and taking away a women’s right to choose. Real popular issues there bub. I think Dems don’t want to be a cult like the Republicans are and so they sort of overcorrected. However this agenda at least is pretty damn good and the president is much better than he’s given credit for. I get it that we expect more from government but maybe it’s time to show a minute of appreciation.
today, Biden greenlit the russian annexation of Ukraine as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that’ll be a home run.
Okay…..tell me more about that. Is he supposed to bomb Moscow? I’m not following. Putin is dangerous and desperate. The older he gets the more he realizes as a dictator he needs to do what Hitler failed to do or he’ll eventually get assassinated and replaced. The more Ukraine becomes a democracy and part of NATO the more likely it becomes that he cannot remain a dictator and he won’t bode well after that. What is Biden to do in this situation? The Putin situation is inevitably going to come to bloodshed at some point. I don’t trust Putin to not use nukes if we go to war to save Eastern Europe. Putin is more dangerous than Kim Jung imo. Like I don’t know how the world deals with him but no option looks great at the moment.
I don't post things I know as false, unlike Trump. Thank you for correcting me. I can admit when I made a mistake, and do apologize. Two traits you will NEVER see in Trump. I retracted my message.
I agree, Putin is far more dangerous, they have the military and technology that KJ would kill to have (pun intended).......KJ is simply a pain in the butt and he suffers from small hands syndrome, just like trump. Putin can actually do something which scares the hell out of me
i don't think one can bode. the future may not bode well for Ukraine however, since Biden has given Putin permission to invade. The US options are indeed limited, but green lighting the annexation of Ukraine would seem to be far down the list.
So I understand that you believe he green lit it, but I don’t see where that’s the case. Quite the opposite. That’s what I asked you to update me on. I do think the US and NATO are convinced he’s going to do it and have armed Ukraine in a way that they’ll essentially be a proxy for the US, and our allies. But it’ll be important for the world and free Ukrainians to see that they are the ones holding back Russian forces, and fighting for their country. If the US and NATO fought Russia directly everyone knows how bad and bloody that would be. Important to know that Putin’s primary weapon to this point has been anti democratic propaganda. He has known that he needs to corrupt and reverse democracy in those countries so they are softened up to the idea of living under a Soviet Stalin like dictatorship again, and there's no need for a bloody battle. If a quarter of the people in those countries died in a bloody battle it would make them much harder to govern, and he knows that. So the fact that Putin is now actually going to do this wreaks of desperation, and paranoia of him losing his power. This Alexander the Great fever dream he has speaks to how he goes back and forth in terms of being a mastermind and a murderous sociopath. It's been 10 years now since 2012 when he truly came into his own as a murderous autocrat. Look back in history at dictators at the 10 year mark. Does their behavior become more strategic or more unhinged, and dangerous?? Was is Biden to do with that? A stand up fight with the US and our allies, or use all of our assets to hope that Putin sees after a week of fighting how worse off he is at achieving his objectives, and hope that he realizes he preserves his power better if he negotiates for a peace treaty?? This is a complicated situation, and I trust Biden/Blinken waaaayyyyy better than I trust Pompeo and Trump. Do I think Pompeo and Trump can get a peace deal??... sure, but they can only do so with corruption, and in the end you can only entice Putin with money from Oligarchs (Russian or American) for so long. In the end, what he is about and his life ambition in to reclaim Soviet glory, and there's no way around the fact that at some point he's going to go all in on doing that at all costs.
A Minnesota US Rep also is touting improvements from the Infrastructure bill too even though he didn't vote for it. https://www.twincities.com/2022/01/...ts-from-infrastructure-bill-he-voted-against/ We're going to see a lot of it. A bunch of Republicans are counting on low attention and low info voters to forget that they actually were opposed to the bill.
To follow up on that, I think it's clear that the Biden plan is to use their economic power of the world's pocketbook to essentially turn the Oligarchs on him which will make him very very weak. Putin's power comes from the Oligarchs. If Biden and the West can successfully seize those funds through various sanctions, and using court ordered seizures of the foreign accounts where their money is kept, I think it obvious that the goal is to get the Oligarchs to say that they value getting their money back vs backing Putin, and it'll make him very very susceptible to a coup in Russia. That is the Biden/Blinken plan if he invades I believe, and something Trump would NEVER do. Trump's foreign policy would operate in a way that makes him more entrenched with the Oligarchs, and in no way would he want to normalize this sort of corrupt autocrat code of ethics with each other.
I fully agree. There isn't much than Biden can do. If he were to send US troops and other direct military action to confront Putin he likely is going to get criticized by many in both parties. Since this thread is "The State of the Republican Party" let's not forget that many in the Republican party openly admire Putin including the former President. Also that in 2016 at the behest of the Trump campaign the Republican party took out of their platform that they would provide more aid to Ukraine. And of course the former President admitted to wanting to cut a deal regarding aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations of political opponents.
Right, and I would expect those actions to be: -Seizing the Russian Oligarchs funds under wartime international laws that gives them power to do so. -Shutting off imports, and business in Russia coming to a halt. Financial meltdown. -All of the intelligence of the 5 Eyes working as offensive and defensive coordinators for Ukraine. Russia won't be able to send a groundhog across their border without Ukrainian forces knowing it -Arming Ukrainian forces with the best military equipment if they don't already have it. I would be surprised if the Ukrainian borders do not already have the same missile defense system that we armed South Korea and Israel with. The Biden admin hasn't said this blatantly but if you read between the lines it seems pretty obvious that Putin is in for a rude awakening. Seizing the pocketbooks of the oligarchs is key though. In the end he's a corrupt mob boss. He's nothing but another Kim Jung without them.
Exactly. I think the biggest threat to Biden's plan not working is actually sympathetic and corrupt actors working to undermine Biden and the West's plan. Is there anyone here that thinks that Tom Cotton or someone in Congress with access to intelligence wouldn't do something to help out Putin if they felt it would undermine Biden and make him look weak?? I absolutely think that Biden's biggest challenge with Putin is a Republican party and their ignorant lied to base of voters essentially rooting for Putin, and undermining the goal not just for Biden, but for western democracy. I don't think for a minute that people like Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump want Ukraine to be a Democracy. Growing Democracies around the world are VERY VERY bad for the Republican party's plans for the next 20 years.
It shows that there would only be support of Ukraine if they agreed to conduct policy based on the personal grudges of the President against U.S. political opponents. The conditions of support weren't based on a common adversarial relationship with Russia and Putin.
Why would our policy and strategy with Russia not involve us keeping Trump or Trumpism in context?? It would make no sense to leave that out as a huge part of the equation. Trumpism in the West is Putin's #1 weapon in the non-violent part of his war/conquest to re-take the Soviet States. Trump and Trumpism represents the Western Democracy that Putin sells to Eastern Europe as a farce in a way that builds support to reform the Soviet Union. Trump or Trumpism is EXTREMELY important to the discussion of Putin and Ukraine. Not to mention the fact that Trump's policy was inherited by Biden a mere 12 months ago, and the fact that the Republicans have blocked the ability to put ambassadors in place to work on diplomacy in Eastern Europe so we are forced with many of the same diplomatic channels from Trump. Also there's the fact that Trump is the sure bet to be the only candidate for the Republican party in 2024 so the contrast is always important to understand what the alternative policy is or would be. I just don't see how any fair conversation about US-Russia can exist without Trump or at least Trumpism.
Had he cut that deal with Zelensky Trump would have had significant Kompromat on him to leverage corruptly. "Wouldn't it be bad for you Mr. President (Zelensky) if the Ukrainian people found out that their president who ran on free and fair elections in Ukraine was secretly cutting deals to undermine Democracy in other countries?" Corrupting Zelensky in this way is a huge win for Putin and rising authoritarians around the globe. I guess you could see this situation as Trump playing both sides, but in the end he's benefiting Putin by potentially destroying the credibility of Zelensky. This is a big reason why the Trump admin Eastern Europe officials were all so eager to go public during the impeachment. They spend their lives and careers working on Eastern Europe in trying to make countries like Ukraine a Democracy. Showing the world that Zelensky was solidly holding and staying true to Democratic values was a huge win for their foreign policy objectives they care deeply about, and was a big thumb in the eye of Putin that Zelensky didn't compromise himself to someone like Trump.
Apparently you don't understand the use of the term "Also." But in terms of Trump's admiration of Putin. This is just after a second of google. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-russia-putin-kim-jong-un-interview-hannity-fox-news-2021-4 "Of his warm personal relationship with the Russian leader, he told Hannity that: "I got along great with President Putin. I liked him, he liked me. That's a good thing, not a bad thing." https://newrepublic.com/article/136635/donald-trump-cant-stop-praising-vladimir-putin Why Donald Trump Can’t Stop Praising Vladimir Putin "Donald Trump has long shown admiration and respect for Vladimir Putin, saying that the authoritarian Russian president is “doing a great job” in “rebuilding Russia,” and “I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin.” After Putin called Trump a “talented person” last year, he returned the favor: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.” So it came as no surprise when he praised Putin during NBC’s “Commander-in-Chief Forum” on Wednesday night. “The man has very strong control over a country,” Trump told Matt Lauer. “It’s a very different system and I don’t happen to like the system, but certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.” Trump also said Putin had an “82 percent approval rating.”
