Wonder if Johnson can see the writing on the wall for MAGA.
I can imagine your frustration as to why would a native Russian speaker need subtitles?
Ukrainians have further developed drone technology to scan, detect, map and gps link the locations of metal in fields. It's called "Brave 1".
Johnson vs MTG / MAGA
“I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Mike Johnson said, noting that Ukraine aid will stop Putin from expanding his conquest later. Remarkably, he's saying that on these matters, the "deep state" is telling the truth. 2/
Marjorie Taylor Greene recently said Biden/pro-Ukraine Rs are "tools of the foreign war loving deep state."
This sort of thing is why some senior Rs admit parts of the GOP are under Russian influence (h/t @juliaioffe). Johnson rebuked that MTG lie. 3/
MTG, Don Jr and others are pushing an elaborate lie: That MAGA wants "peace" (defined as ending Ukraine aid) while defenders of Ukraine are the ones who want to continue the war (by keeping the aid going). This trope erases Russian agency entirely. 4/
Similarly, JD Vance smuggled into his @nytopinion piece the idea that "we" (the US) will "prolong" war by renewing aid and that *Biden's* refusal to negotiate is keeping it going. Surprised NYT let him get away w/erasing Russian agency so deceptively. 5/
Hopefully this amendment passes
“ A U.S. lawmaker has mocked Marjorie Taylor Greene by adding an amendment to the Ukraine aid bill requiring that she be appointed "Vladimir Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress."“
She better watch what tea she drinks as her antics (that look like to have pissed off both Trump and speaker) might yet lose the vote for her master in Kremlin
Methinks the lady doth protest too much
Hopefully the Biden campaign retweets that to a much wider audience. Brilliant. And the patronising disdain for Greene the icing on the cake.
EXCELLENT - @TimothyDSnyder schools @RepMTG on the facts of russian fascism. Have a listen
let’s step back for a minute
It’s not in Bidens (or Trumps) power or authority to handover a fifth of another country and condemn millions of citizens of a country they do not represent to a certain death and genocide, at worst they might not support it with aid but that’s hard to do when same men have to be elected by populations who see daily on their tv screens the atrocities that Russians commit which leads to representatives in Congress and EU and UK parliaments ordering something to be done
The fact that the poster believes that this is even a possibility at exposes their cynical Russian propaganda warped world view where Ukraine is not a country and Ukrainians are not people, a world where great powers (something that Russia certainly is not) slice up the world into spheres of influence like its the 19th century with hand drawn lines on a map
Putin fantasises about himself being a sort of Stalin carving up the world at a Yalta conference 2.0 but he is closer to Saddam and Gaddafi in the outcome he will meet
Meanwhile believe it or not…..Truth or deliberate misinformation to block US aid to Ukraine?
Handing over territories just cause a nation chooses to invade them has historically not gone well. On top of that, you've got the issue of genocide which hasn't gone away and left Russia with the knowledge that they can expand. Trump would happily give up all of Ukraine imho.
Mod
I deleted some posts quoting a thread banned user. Please don't respond to them, just report them, thanks.
I'd agree with you, mostly, on Stone (particularly on Salvador). It does seem to me though, that he's spent too much time getting high without someone willing to tell him "Don't be daft, Oliver" (see also: don't be daft Roger) and has developed quite a lot of out there ideas. Interviewing Putin was a misstep, imo, in that Putin was already a serial murderer and war criminal at that point and shouldn't be given these soft opportunities to spread his propaganda.
https://apnews.com/article/germany-russia-spying-sabotage-ukraine-arrests-927490085e244ba72d84e4a374ee198b
They are planning to attack EU/NATO countries, have already carried murdered people in the UK, they really need to be stopped. Really, providing support to Ukraine is a really painless way of self help for the western world.
"Someone will have to step in and broker peace"
How about putin steps in, and pulls your ruSSIan army out of another sovereign state ?
If people genuinely believe surrender is in the best interests of Ukraine or the western world they are uninformed or have been fooled by the propaganda. Utter nonsense.
Also the view that Russia is in some way misunderstood is utter sh!te. It is an evil regime, the country is a dictatorship, where independent media and protest is banned.
It just has to be defeated. Ideally its leadership would also be overthrown, the country does not have a legitimate Government.
Russian spin has about as much relevance as the western variety. May I enquire as to why you're consuming Russian propaganda?
Clumsy really. Consuming suggests eating it up. I read/listen to it. Like any propaganda including Ukraine's it can be informative on a few levels; what they're hoping, thinking and believing, what they want their own people and observers to hope, think and believe and what they're actually concerned about. In the latter case if propaganda repeatedly and loudly claims "X or Y makes no difference and we're not concerned" you can take it to the bank it does and they are.
If you're interested, I recently discovered the Oliver Stone interviews with Putin are available on audible, with an English voice dubbed over. It's obviously before this SMO kicked off, but you might find it interesting. I tried watching them at the time, but I find subtitles rather irritating.
I watched the series a few years ago. Pre covid anyway. It was interesting to see what Putin believes/wants to be believed unencumbered by a passive interviewer* who gave him free reign with zero follow up or harder questioning. In that sense it was more a one man party political broadcast than an interview. Putin came across more strongly than in the recent Tucker piece which was at times bizarre. The half hour potted history stuff which at times read like he was smoking pot a high point. And a missed opportunity for Putin. He could have(and was expected to) use Tucker to reach some Western groups eager to lap up his strong man/conservative spiel, but instead he seemed to be almost entirely aiming at an already believing home crowd.
*I've a lot of time for Stone as a writer/director, Salvador being one of my fave flics, but he's also a man who can't easily pass up a conspiracy, particularly of the 1960's lefty US student deep state kind. He'd likely say he's not an interviewer and he was just recording and observing his subject, and I'd buy that actually, but…
Speaking of potatoes, if Argentina joins NATO and other western countries like South Korea, Japan, Australia follow suit we can endup with NATO being replaced by POTATO 😆
Pacific Ocean and TransAtlantic Treaty Organisation
Jokes aside i kinda feel sorry for how much effort these guys put in trying to paint Russia as harmless and not in any way shape or form an aggressive colonial empire which started largest war in Europe since the first iteration of fascists experimented with same ideology, only to be undone by latest shipment of Italian wine to the Kremlin
Trump doing something different? This is the same Trump who already tried to sell out Ukraine once when they wouldn't go along with an utterly false smear campaign on his political rivals?
Anybody who genuinely cares about the fate of Ukraine, or peace in Europe, would not want Trump to have any say in its future.
It's hard to broker peace unless the Ukranians are on board with that. Part of the negotiations will be how much Ukranian territory Russia gets to control. Not an easy discussion. We can write off the notion that Ukrane will get everything back in negotiations.
Why do you say it's half arsed? $60 billion is a lot of money.
I would have more hope of Trump getting some sort of deal done to end this conflict, than someone like Biden who really doesn't look too interested in a negotiated settlement / peace deal etc. At least Trump appears to be open minded to doing something different, only time will tell if that is genuine.
Someone will have to step in and broker peace, unless we want this thing to rumble on for many years… or Ukraine suffering a catastrophic military defeat due to lack of funding / manpower.
I don’t trust the republicans either and we best not count the chickens before tomorrows (unprecedented Saturday) vote
Politically it seems Trump got pushed over by that Moscow agent Margerie, he hates women challenging him and their spat is getting ever more public
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-mike-johnson-marjorie-taylor-greene-rcna147699
Who knows maybe hopefully fingers crossed we get a Ukraine bill and Margerie gets pushed out too, as politically going against Trump is a death sentence for republicans
What great news to wake up to!
I wouldn't trust a word trump and co say about Ukraine. They'll obviously show a little support for Ukraine when this half arsed aid bill passes otherwise they look bad.
Wowe much good news today
Had to double take when I seen this headline
By Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/world/donald-trump-says-ukraines-survival-is-important-us-2024-04-18/
edit: another double take
edit x2: 🤓
Some countries like Denmark are directly funding weapons purchases from Ukrainian companies, and others like Germany are building factories there and offering air defences said facilities
The link i posted on previous page goes into quite a bit of detail about exactly what’s in the bill, for example funding for 2 million new shells from US factories, direct funding for salaries of soldiers on frontlines and gems such as “Biden must promptly deliver long range ATACMS”
Also since we are well into 2024 a lot of the equipment and ammo would flood in quickly and in space of few months, and if there is anything that US military excels in is logistics, once this passes the ball should be started rolling on 2025 funding
I agree, though the hard realities of profit will certainly come into it. That's another aspect of this US funding that the Republican naysayers are missing, deliberately or otherwise; it's going to enrich quite a few of them. A few of the same naysayers are politicians in US states that actually build this military kit, so you'd think more cash and jobs being ploughed into their local economies would be welcomed.
Well they would say that wouldn't they? Even though they've been trying hard to stop the same funding, shouting about it whenever and wherever they could.
Though for Russia, the last of the old European empires still standing that colonised east all the way to the Pacific, retaining most of her borders from when they literally called themselves the Russian Empire and currently in the middle of a murderous expansionist war, to call anyone colonial is a self awareness free irony of the highest order.
I have one issue with the seized Russian assets being used to bankroll the war effort and its to do with the inflated prices the Americans have been placing on the equipment they have been providing. I would say conservatively its being valued at least 10x more than what its worth, in many cases its a cost saving i.e. the cluster bombs. So are we heading into a situation where the main arms provider is going to make a profit from supporting this war and provide far less gear than what the seized assets could purchase if priced correctly. OK if they're getting the latest and greatest, but if they're buying army surplus and decommissioning stock then the cost should reflect that.
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