Every useful or pleasing claim about the war, no matter how unverified or subsequently debunked, rapidly spreads, while dissenters are vilified as traitors or Kremlin agents.
It's not just that idiot Kinzinger and Liz Cheney. Mitt Romney went out of his way today to impugn the motives and loyalty of the few Republican politicians who have had the spine and integrity to stand against the War Machine propaganda, by claiming to do so was borderline treason. His reasoning (sic)? "(Putin) imprisons his political opponents" Um, Mitt, you mean like Ed Snowden? Like Julian Assange? Like *many* of the participants in 1/6 who committed misdemeanors (at worst) in the course of exercising their 1st Amendment rights?
Mitt wants to change his name to Pierre Delecto. Please respect his preferences.
Trump's refusal to pardon heroes Snowden & Assange (without Julian he never would've been president), and the unarmed 1/6 "insurrectionists" he helped lure into entrapment by refusing to discredit the Q psyops, and his refusal to lift a finger to help them -- too busy pardoning bank robbers, drug dealers, celebs & toadies -- are among the key reasons I no longer support him.
Mitt Romney is directly controlled by the Intelligence State…his previous CIA Handler, Cofer Black, was sent to Ukraine to manage gas and oil from the “Hunter seat” on the Burisma BOT…
The more I hear about this, the more it follows the biden*/Intelligence State pysop against President Trump…
We continue to purchase Russian fossil fuels during a major World Conflict (War?) and apparently State Dept and CIA are supporting “gain of function” Bioweapons experiments all around the World
" Um, Mitt, you mean like Ed Snowden? Like Julian Assange? Like *many* of the participants in 1/6 who committed misdemeanors (at worst) in the course of exercising their 1st Amendment rights?"
Like a truly astonishing 2.3 million in prison, and millions more some kind of limited release. More than any country in history, by rate and by sheer numbers. More than Stalin. Most of them POCs. More men are raped in US prisons than women living in the community. That's actually considered "funny". Soap jokes are perfectly fine at twitter. But don't use the wrong pronoun!
I barely noticed that he was even running. But no matter, the wars, the wealth transfer, and unconditional love for Israel is something 'both' sides agree on and always will.
Whether you like it or not, Assange and Snowden aren't imprisoned, they are being sought to try them in a court of law. The problem with them is that Assange is the press who simply released information given him, the government wants to try him for complicity in the accessing of the data, and Snowden blew the whistle on unconstitutional and illegal government surveillance of American citizens.
Assange is a political prisoner, in prison, without trial. The "problem" with Assange is he embarrassed and exposed the corrupt Clintons, the corrupt Military Industrial Complex, and the treasonous Deep State. He's more American than all of his enemies combined.
Split hairs much? Assange is imprisoned in the UK, which the US has frantically begged for his extradition so that he can be sent to the lovely island vacation resort of Guantanamo. Snowden is in exile in Russia; the moment he sets foot outside its borders, he will be arrested by US agents and summarily imprisoned. Did you have anything of substance to contribute, or are you just one of the puerile nitwits who lurks here only to find opportunities to nitpick others? Your post is at least as vulnerable to critical parsing: given the context (do you know what that is?) of my comment, why would I not "like it" if Snowden and/or Assange were truly at liberty?
So, in your fantasy world, imprisonment of an individual only ever occurs after formal indictment and trial resulting in a guilty verdict? Is this some universe created by Doug Adams? Do you need a link to the Merriam-Webster or Oxford dictionary sited to improve your mastery of the term? I would also refer you to that little vacation paradise the US maintains in Cuban territory for definitive counter-examples.
Joe's sexual and financial peculiarities notwithstanding, he doesn't run the show. The oligarchy's deep state apparatus puts up with that shit as long as he remains a useful tool. Hey, Useful Tool - good name for a band.
To me, it's funny how US politicians and the corporate media is making it sound like China is the bad guy. When in fact, the multinational corporations (US big business decades ago) built up China's economy and most US politicians sat back, took their contributions (bribes and kickbacks), and allowed it to happen. Here's a timeline of my conspiracy theory.
1972 Future CIA director Poppy (closet neocon) becomes a liaison to China
Now I know Poppy claimed he wasn't a neocon, and the corporate media has painted him that way too, but look who he surrounded himself with: Cheeney, Rumsfeld, Dubya, Jeb, etc.
I said much the same thing in a reply to a Powerline comment, got me BANNED. Seems to have been for life too, I've tried a couple of times to get back there but denied every time....
Neither am I (though I admit I had an account with each for a short time years ago) yet that one post seems to have touched a nerve @ Discus 'cause now I'm PNG whether I use the same or another e-mail address. Appears to be tied to my IP account provider, not just Powerline Blog's comments rules. Maybe time for a VPN...
On the other hand, Illinois lost a Congressional seat due to the census, and the Dem super majority that controls gerryman, er, redistricting, did away with his spot. He may be just auditioning for a job at a Think Tank, or something. Which is NO excuse for WWIII.
Maybe he'll sign up with the Podestas' Center for American Progress. Tony & John are from Chicago after all, Like Rahm & his brother, Barry Sotero too if memory serves.
Kinzinger is such a fringe figure in the Republican Party – he’s retiring at the end of the year – that I don’t know why Glenn even bothers to talk about him.
He's hardly fringe at this point. Many "Rs" are humping the war drums now, as they were before the invasion of Iraq. His & Cheney's corrupt inbred POV may be rehabbed.
His retirement is far from voluntary. He has been gerrymandered out of a seat that would have been a challenge to restrain had his district not been redrawn.
Well you know Illinois is such a fine state and has never had a single shred of corruption even in downtown Chicago, amidst the Republicans like in Chicago Heights I mean clearly he is continuing the tradition of fine, upstanding work done by IL politicians.
Plus the DemComs' massive pfuck ups and weakness over the last 2 years are massive smoke signals that encouraged Putin's aggression. I'm no Trump fan anymore, but this would not be happening under Trump.
My main complaint with Trump pre-CCP-19 was the continuing deficit. After it hit, I initially thought he was a moron for not sacking Fauci, only to later learn of the corrupt barging between Fauci and other pharmacrats that if one of them was fired, the rest would resign in a publicity stunt intended to sack Trump. Now we know that Daszak, Fauci and Collins shot down the Lab Leak theory and those who opposed lockdowns, it shows just how large and rotten the swamp is.
I likewise thought he was a moron for not pardoning Assange and Snowden, however as the Durham investigation has revealed, you had DNC tools hacking into the personal correspondence of 'the office of the president of the United States'. What threats they used against him and his family I do not know, but it explains why he acted as he did.
His impulsiveness didn't help with anything either, and now that time is passing, the lack of aid given to the 1/6 defendants is sickening. Now the same swamp rats that had spied on him could be holding a sword over his head, I don't know, all I know is that it makes him look very bad.
* Massive corruption - The Bidens took $BILLIONS in bribes from Ukraine & China
* Hysterical lockdowns bankrupting millions of businesses, driving people into poverty and homelessness while benefiting big businesses like Amazon & Walmart
* Forced injections
* Painful inflation
* Labeling parents who complain at school board meetings "terrorists" and having FBI and "Homeland Security" investigate and arrest them
* The idiotic way he fled Afghanistan, leaving Americans and tens of $Billions in arms behind
* A sensitive tranny military
* Dishonorable discharges for soldiers who refuse forced injection
* Stoking racism and hate through "critical race theory" and backing racist groups like Black Lives Matter
* Crushing domestic oil production, jobs and independence and driving up gasoline prices, which also shoves $Billions into Putin's pocket
You think Putin missed any of those signals of weakness?
Good points on the whole, but I think the immediate signal to Putin that Biden put the German economy above Ukrainian independence was removing the sanctions on the Nordstream 2 pipeline. And perhaps even more when administration allies in the Senate turned back an effort by Republicans and some Democrats to restore the sanctions.
While I despise Brandon, I think American hubris is a disgusting sign of its imperial designs and anti-democratic stance. We have no right telling Germany who they must buy their gas from.
My empirical observations are that on social media you cannot have a rational conversation about Ukraine without being attacked as a traitor.
In Europe, especially in former communist countries, the anti-Russian sentiment is so strong that again no rational debate is available.
In the UK, until the invasion, surprisingly most people could see the nuances in the whole situation. Even those who would get triggered over discussing lockdowns or lab leaks were willing to have a good, civilised debate.
Since the invasion, there has been a split in the anti-lockdown group. Those that didn't believe in lockdowns due to their critical thinking are still able to rationally discuss. Those who opposed lockdowns, purely because of their libertarian leanings are now firmly in the Putin is an evil madman, no discussion camp.
It's interesting that adults when it comes to political issues adopt such black and white thinking on issues, and become so vulnerable to propaganda. There was a significant amount of evidence before the Iraq war that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, and much of what Bush/Cheney was spewing were lies, but of course he was supported on both sides of the political isle and backed by a complicit press that supported those lies. However even after the war, many years after, when it was shown no such weapons existed, I would still here people rationalize our invasion by saying he got rid of the weapons of mass destruction before the war. Perhaps they were unable to acknowledge the US engaging in a lie of a war that killed, injured and displaced so many, and they bought the lie which in a way made them complicit.
He did pursue weapons of mass destruction during the First Iraq War. We found and dismantled his nuclear weapons lab.
That he was pursuing WMDs earlier and viewing international inspection before the second war as part of a “who has the biggest dick” competition… if you let the inspectors in, you have shown your neighbors you have no dick… suggested to me that he could have been pursuing them. Qadaffi did let the inspectors in in that time frame.
There were no weapons of mass destruction which was used as a pretext for war in Iraq. All those accusations along with those aluminum tubes were BS. We wanted to take him out along with other middle eastern countries that were on the agenda of people like Cheney for a long time. Just look at our wars, many wars in the middle east. None can be justified, including our sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia to slaughter the people of Yemen. Look at all the covert activity carried out by the CIA that killed some 6 million people even before our wars in the middle east began. We complain endlessly about Iran but we overturned Mohammad Mosaddegh back in the 1950's, a democratically elected president. Let's not forget In August 1964, the United States entered the Vietnam War after reports of an unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. But the reports were false — and Johnson knew it.
That's an appealing narrative; too bad it's false. ABC News interviewed Saddam's FBI debiefer, and the upshot was that Iraq ran the most successful deception campaign since the XX Committee during World War II. Saddam was convinced that the only way to prevent Iran invading him was to convince Iran that he had WMD. The French and the Russians assured him that he could do this without risk, because between them they could control the idiot Bush.
Qaddafi gave up his nine WMD sites — of which four were unknown to the international community — a couple of weeks after Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq. Though the usual suspects insist that was only an amazing coincidence!
When Saddam Hussein was left in power at the end of the first Gulf War, he became convinced that the US wanted him in power, and from that point on ignored all the bellicose rhetoric. Just as Putin ignored the rhetoric from the Biden administration and paid attention to its giving its imprimatur to his pipeline bypassing Ukraine.
Your first paragraph is correct, the second incorrect. Inspectors were inspecting Iraq but not close to finished (it's a big country, as the US learned when trying to control it) when Bush decided, "Enough" and attacked. Not unlike the 2000 election when they were counting votes in Florida.
As far as they had checked they had found no WMD, correct. They just wanted to finish their job. Hans Blix was my fucking hero speaking out about how he was not able to finish his job.
Media loves an anti- Trump Republican, and the anti-Trump Republicans love the media praise. Romney goes on TV to pontificate to the same people who in 2012 called him racist, a teenage bully, a dog abuser, and who ate up "the 80s called, they want their foreign policy back."
Mitt Romney has called out Americans who support Russian president Vladimir Putin as being “almost treasonous” “How anybody in this country, which loves freedom, can side with Vladimir Putin, who is an oppressor, a dictator, he kills people, he imprisons his political opponents, he has been an adversary of America at every chance he’s had, it’s unthinkable to me, it’s almost treasonous,” he told host Dana Bash. Maybe poor Romney has lost a bit, or big bit of his memory and has forgotten our many wars that killed and displaced millions of people, imprisoned people in black sites, and in Guantanomo where they were tortured. If he doesn't have dementia he''s a hypocritical SOB.
Like Glenn so eloquently said in this article, if you question any action the US takes in response to Russia’s actions, you are a de-facto supporter of Putin. Nuance is not allowed. Resistance to the government line is treason.
It is never wise to categorize people and to assume that you know what they think. Dr. Rand Paul is a libertarian. Has he gone on record as saying that Putin is an evil madman? I am a libertarian with no interest in Ukraine. Cannabis should not be a Schedule 1 drug. Oops. Did my mind just wander?
My browser still shows 3 of your comments and none of mine. No idea what to do. I remember our conversation, but this one is, although frustrating, more pleasant.
I didn't phrase that very well. There are a group of anti lockdowners who opposed them because of their love of freedom but as soon as a different divisive issue crops up, that doesn't involve their liberties, they lose their critical thinking abilities.
Of course anti-Russian sentiment is high in European countries formally ruled by the Russian-dominated USSR. For the same reason anti-Nazi sentiment is high among Jews. In those countries, the Soviets killed millions of people, so that nearly every family can remember a relative or relatives they killed.
In fact, the Russians killed my mother’s father. He was a high school teacher; his crime was lending pre-revolutionary books to some of his students. He was put to death; his students went to Siberia for long terms (except for the informer).
I would think anti-Nazi sentiment would be high among Jews, and they are, except for people like Nuland, Jewish, and neocons in general who during the Obama administration instigated a coup against it's elected government and used a bunch of neo-nazi's to do it. The ultra right and these neo-nazi groups to this day continue to extol the virtues of those who assisted Hitler in the extermination of the Jews and Poles.
"Ultra right" is not related to "neo-nazis". Nazis were and are on the left, just not as far left as the Communists. Nazi after all means National Socialist. They acted like socialists, taking over massive amounts of the economy. Hitler never said "I am concerned that our government is too large and will slash our spending by 25% by the end of my 5-year term" or "Our military is much too big and I will cut the number of people conscripted by 33% over the next 3 years." He did the exact opposite.
To give you some idea of whether the Nazis thought of Stepan Bandera as a friend, he spent most of the war locked up in a Nazi concentration camp! They let him out only when they got really desperate, towards the end.
Like some of our Founding Fathers, Bandera is an ambiguous figure. Jews were part of his organization at various times; while at other times his organization was accused of atrocities against Jews. Nazi-hunters seem to have decided against pursuing him; he was murdered in 1959 by famed KGB assassin, Bohdan Stashynsky.
At some point you’d think common sense would take hold, and one would take stories about Jews supporting neo-Nazis with a grain or two of salt.
In reality, European neo-Nazis like Putin, for crushing Muslims and suppressing homosexuals. They see him as the Defender of the White Race. (Some ultra-right Christians see him as Defender of the Faith.)
On the other hand, Nazis do not see Ukraine’s Jewish President as the Defender of the White Race.
In reality, the Maidan movement that toppled the Russian puppet President of Ukraine was a mass movement of the Ukrainian people, against a traitor who had left Ukraine militarily helpless while looting the country.
Nuland is Jewish and so his her husband, Kagan, as well as other neocons who supported the overthrow of this government which is what I was referencing, and I did so because I thought it was disgusting when they used a bunch of neo nazi's to bring down the elected regime. I didn't make a blanketed statement about the Jewish people in general. Putin is not a neo-nazi!!!!!!!!!!! 25 million Russian lives lost in WWII to bring down Hitler. No Taras, he is in Ukraine because those ultra right wingers and neo nazi's who believe Ukraine should be pure and a place where only Ukranians reside have killed thousands of ethnic Russians, especially the separatist in the Donbass region. Well, in terms of Ukraines poverty no doubt there was lots of corruption but now it is considered the most corrupt government in all of Europe.
According to you, “ultra right wingers and neo nazi's” elected a Jewish President of Ukraine in 2019. Can’t you see the absurdity of that? For reasons I previously mentioned, Putin really is the darling of European neo-Nazis and ultra-rightists.
Ukrainians and Russians are two closely related branches of the Slavic family. Nobody thinks of them as different races. The argument between them in Ukraine is about what language the government uses. The Ukrainian government is trying to bring back the Ukrainian language, the use of which Russian overlords had spent centuries trying to discourage.
I guess you’ve forgotten, or never knew, that Germany and Russia started World War II as allies, with Germany attacking Poland from the west and Russia attacking Poland from the east. Stalin was so enamored of his partnership with Hitler that he refused to believe his own spies, when they warned him that Germany was about to turn on him.
So the Soviets lost a great many lives in the war they helped Hitler start. It didn’t help that, just before the war, Stalin had executed all of the Red Army’s experienced commanders in his Great Purge, seeing them as potential rivals. The new commanders spent the lives of Soviet soldiers like water, because if they didn’t they would be suspected of lacking in zeal and purged in their turn.
Kinzinger openly proved that he is dangerous and unhinged…
…his demented aggression against President Trump shows he’s an Intelligence State plant
It's not just that idiot Kinzinger and Liz Cheney. Mitt Romney went out of his way today to impugn the motives and loyalty of the few Republican politicians who have had the spine and integrity to stand against the War Machine propaganda, by claiming to do so was borderline treason. His reasoning (sic)? "(Putin) imprisons his political opponents" Um, Mitt, you mean like Ed Snowden? Like Julian Assange? Like *many* of the participants in 1/6 who committed misdemeanors (at worst) in the course of exercising their 1st Amendment rights?
Mitt wants to change his name to Pierre Delecto. Please respect his preferences.
Trump's refusal to pardon heroes Snowden & Assange (without Julian he never would've been president), and the unarmed 1/6 "insurrectionists" he helped lure into entrapment by refusing to discredit the Q psyops, and his refusal to lift a finger to help them -- too busy pardoning bank robbers, drug dealers, celebs & toadies -- are among the key reasons I no longer support him.
Trump loves and cares for Trump. That's the list.
And no wall!
No one ever accused Romney of being a team player.
Mitt Romney is directly controlled by the Intelligence State…his previous CIA Handler, Cofer Black, was sent to Ukraine to manage gas and oil from the “Hunter seat” on the Burisma BOT…
The more I hear about this, the more it follows the biden*/Intelligence State pysop against President Trump…
We continue to purchase Russian fossil fuels during a major World Conflict (War?) and apparently State Dept and CIA are supporting “gain of function” Bioweapons experiments all around the World
" Um, Mitt, you mean like Ed Snowden? Like Julian Assange? Like *many* of the participants in 1/6 who committed misdemeanors (at worst) in the course of exercising their 1st Amendment rights?"
Like a truly astonishing 2.3 million in prison, and millions more some kind of limited release. More than any country in history, by rate and by sheer numbers. More than Stalin. Most of them POCs. More men are raped in US prisons than women living in the community. That's actually considered "funny". Soap jokes are perfectly fine at twitter. But don't use the wrong pronoun!
I always thought Mitt Romney purposely tanked the 2012 election. Doesn't he sound even more now like a Democrat asset?
I barely noticed that he was even running. But no matter, the wars, the wealth transfer, and unconditional love for Israel is something 'both' sides agree on and always will.
Whether you like it or not, Assange and Snowden aren't imprisoned, they are being sought to try them in a court of law. The problem with them is that Assange is the press who simply released information given him, the government wants to try him for complicity in the accessing of the data, and Snowden blew the whistle on unconstitutional and illegal government surveillance of American citizens.
Assange isn’t in prison? He’ll be thrilled to hear that.
See my response below.
Dissembling drivel.
I know you are.
Assange is a political prisoner, in prison, without trial. The "problem" with Assange is he embarrassed and exposed the corrupt Clintons, the corrupt Military Industrial Complex, and the treasonous Deep State. He's more American than all of his enemies combined.
Not yet. He exposed war crimes.
Split hairs much? Assange is imprisoned in the UK, which the US has frantically begged for his extradition so that he can be sent to the lovely island vacation resort of Guantanamo. Snowden is in exile in Russia; the moment he sets foot outside its borders, he will be arrested by US agents and summarily imprisoned. Did you have anything of substance to contribute, or are you just one of the puerile nitwits who lurks here only to find opportunities to nitpick others? Your post is at least as vulnerable to critical parsing: given the context (do you know what that is?) of my comment, why would I not "like it" if Snowden and/or Assange were truly at liberty?
The technicality is that he hasn't stood trial. He's not been found guilty.
So, in your fantasy world, imprisonment of an individual only ever occurs after formal indictment and trial resulting in a guilty verdict? Is this some universe created by Doug Adams? Do you need a link to the Merriam-Webster or Oxford dictionary sited to improve your mastery of the term? I would also refer you to that little vacation paradise the US maintains in Cuban territory for definitive counter-examples.
In the real world he hasn't been tried.
Fuck you’re stupid.
Pardon us if, considering what all these two people have been through, we’re unmoved by “Well, actually…”
Fuck, you're stupid.
C'mon Biss, How can you be so fucking stupid.
Assange is in prison in the UK, that he hasn't been given a fair trial makes it even more reprehinsible.
He's in PRISON without trial, which is even worse. In any case, he's IN PRISON. A political PRISONER.
He's appealed his extradiction: https://londondaily.com/assange-extradition-appeal-lawyers-cite-new-claims-of-cia-plot-to-harm-him. He's not a political prisoner yet.
"court of law"
Where do they have those?
Swalwell just comes across as simply, 'thick'.
I don't know if Swalwell is figuratively in bed with the Chinese, but as for literally, well...
Right but Michael Flynn was a traitor for doing a phone call with foreigners.
After all, America did have a big hand in lifting China to the height they now enjoy.
BS. China is next on the regime change list.
BS. Xi is on Joe's blow job list.
Joe's sexual and financial peculiarities notwithstanding, he doesn't run the show. The oligarchy's deep state apparatus puts up with that shit as long as he remains a useful tool. Hey, Useful Tool - good name for a band.
To me, it's funny how US politicians and the corporate media is making it sound like China is the bad guy. When in fact, the multinational corporations (US big business decades ago) built up China's economy and most US politicians sat back, took their contributions (bribes and kickbacks), and allowed it to happen. Here's a timeline of my conspiracy theory.
1972 Future CIA director Poppy (closet neocon) becomes a liaison to China
1976 Poppy becomes CIA director
1976 Mao dies
1978 Xiaoping becomes de facto leader of China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping
1978 Xiaoping is the "General Architect" of economic reform
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping
1978 China opens up large scale production for a global market
https://www.learningfromchina.net/deng-xiaoping-the-worlds-greatest-economist/
1989 President Bush invites Xiaoping to the W.H.
Now I know Poppy claimed he wasn't a neocon, and the corporate media has painted him that way too, but look who he surrounded himself with: Cheeney, Rumsfeld, Dubya, Jeb, etc.
"Read my lips..."
China and Russia are now a unity, and they are united against America. America insisted on that. It took decades of idiotic policies, but here we are.
Yup. So said George Soros so then it will be. The Mad Hatter is on it again.
"biden'" is clearly mental. He is not in charge.
Who is?
I sure hope so.
You are merely spreading the idiocy that one can't hate China enough -- are you practicing Falun Gong lunatic "religion"?
Swalwell, rather Swallowwell cannot swallow his own ego, but he can swallow Fang Fang's juices. Gives a new definition of fucking with the enemy.
I said much the same thing in a reply to a Powerline comment, got me BANNED. Seems to have been for life too, I've tried a couple of times to get back there but denied every time....
Thanks for pointing that out...here I thought one could blast a habitual liar and hypocrite like that as I'm neither on Facebook or Twitter.
Neither am I (though I admit I had an account with each for a short time years ago) yet that one post seems to have touched a nerve @ Discus 'cause now I'm PNG whether I use the same or another e-mail address. Appears to be tied to my IP account provider, not just Powerline Blog's comments rules. Maybe time for a VPN...
Was my comment juvenile? Yes.
Is is embarrassing? Slightly.
Would I take it back? No.
Does Swalwell deserve more? Hell yes.
He should go back to pole dancing at a gay strip club
You are insulting gay strippers.
As “thick” as the great walls of China.
Swalwell is a Russiagate dunce, with an IQ of 53, last I checked.
And the word "Intelligence" is amusing in connection with Kinzinger.
As is the notion that Adam's looking to join a "Think Tank". LOL.
Would mommy be putting Adam on a short bus to work every day?
Kinsiger is retiring and anything he says is meaningless.
Dangerously meaningless…
…an angry lame duck when cornered is dangerous
He'll be on CNN or MSNBC as one of the talking heads.
Him and Cheney will both be 'political analysts' for CNN 10 minutes after they're out of office.
He has the IQ of a “plant”!!
You are insulting plants.
On the other hand, Illinois lost a Congressional seat due to the census, and the Dem super majority that controls gerryman, er, redistricting, did away with his spot. He may be just auditioning for a job at a Think Tank, or something. Which is NO excuse for WWIII.
Kinsinger at a THINK tank? LOL.
Maybe he'll sign up with the Podestas' Center for American Progress. Tony & John are from Chicago after all, Like Rahm & his brother, Barry Sotero too if memory serves.
Seems like Tony Rezko had something to do with BO coming to Chicago. Maybe not the only thing. Of course, B. Ayers and B. Dohrn live there, too.
Kinzinger is such a fringe figure in the Republican Party – he’s retiring at the end of the year – that I don’t know why Glenn even bothers to talk about him.
He's hardly fringe at this point. Many "Rs" are humping the war drums now, as they were before the invasion of Iraq. His & Cheney's corrupt inbred POV may be rehabbed.
So true, so sad.
This beloved Republic of ours needs serious structural repairs and they need to be done soon, before the statue-toppling generation takes full reigns.
He gets disproportionate MSM attention and airtime due to his status as an "anti Trump Republican," just like the Rep from Wyoming whose daddy was VP.
His retirement is far from voluntary. He has been gerrymandered out of a seat that would have been a challenge to restrain had his district not been redrawn.
Well you know Illinois is such a fine state and has never had a single shred of corruption even in downtown Chicago, amidst the Republicans like in Chicago Heights I mean clearly he is continuing the tradition of fine, upstanding work done by IL politicians.
Pete, I agree totalluy about Kinzinger, he looks like a mad zombie in the photo above.
\\][//
To be vehemently prowar and anti trump is indeed suspect.
PRESIDENT TRUMP!(drink)
Why must you always be a sandy little butthole, Comrade?
Plus the DemComs' massive pfuck ups and weakness over the last 2 years are massive smoke signals that encouraged Putin's aggression. I'm no Trump fan anymore, but this would not be happening under Trump.
What did Trump do wrong?
My main complaint with Trump pre-CCP-19 was the continuing deficit. After it hit, I initially thought he was a moron for not sacking Fauci, only to later learn of the corrupt barging between Fauci and other pharmacrats that if one of them was fired, the rest would resign in a publicity stunt intended to sack Trump. Now we know that Daszak, Fauci and Collins shot down the Lab Leak theory and those who opposed lockdowns, it shows just how large and rotten the swamp is.
I likewise thought he was a moron for not pardoning Assange and Snowden, however as the Durham investigation has revealed, you had DNC tools hacking into the personal correspondence of 'the office of the president of the United States'. What threats they used against him and his family I do not know, but it explains why he acted as he did.
His impulsiveness didn't help with anything either, and now that time is passing, the lack of aid given to the 1/6 defendants is sickening. Now the same swamp rats that had spied on him could be holding a sword over his head, I don't know, all I know is that it makes him look very bad.
Trump did not get much support, especially from people he appointed, in his attempt to clean the 'swamp.'
Are you serious?
Yes, please specify
Not until you tell me at least one thing you think he did wrong. If you can't do that, I doubt you're for real, and I'm no gopher.
?
* Massive corruption - The Bidens took $BILLIONS in bribes from Ukraine & China
* Hysterical lockdowns bankrupting millions of businesses, driving people into poverty and homelessness while benefiting big businesses like Amazon & Walmart
* Forced injections
* Painful inflation
* Labeling parents who complain at school board meetings "terrorists" and having FBI and "Homeland Security" investigate and arrest them
* The idiotic way he fled Afghanistan, leaving Americans and tens of $Billions in arms behind
* A sensitive tranny military
* Dishonorable discharges for soldiers who refuse forced injection
* Stoking racism and hate through "critical race theory" and backing racist groups like Black Lives Matter
* Crushing domestic oil production, jobs and independence and driving up gasoline prices, which also shoves $Billions into Putin's pocket
You think Putin missed any of those signals of weakness?
Good points on the whole, but I think the immediate signal to Putin that Biden put the German economy above Ukrainian independence was removing the sanctions on the Nordstream 2 pipeline. And perhaps even more when administration allies in the Senate turned back an effort by Republicans and some Democrats to restore the sanctions.
In diplomacy, actions speak louder than words.
While I despise Brandon, I think American hubris is a disgusting sign of its imperial designs and anti-democratic stance. We have no right telling Germany who they must buy their gas from.
By pointing this out you have now “openly supported Putin”…
…what a dangerous evil narrative that is /s
Really, Comrade? Is that what I did? Oops. forgot the /s
To the soft left, they are signs of mercy and peace and forgiveness… not weakness.
Like phony Christians who misinterpret Christ: "Spread the other cheek."
Once a nuclear war between nato and russia has started, the pooling numbers for the midterms will be the most important thing to watch.
My empirical observations are that on social media you cannot have a rational conversation about Ukraine without being attacked as a traitor.
In Europe, especially in former communist countries, the anti-Russian sentiment is so strong that again no rational debate is available.
In the UK, until the invasion, surprisingly most people could see the nuances in the whole situation. Even those who would get triggered over discussing lockdowns or lab leaks were willing to have a good, civilised debate.
Since the invasion, there has been a split in the anti-lockdown group. Those that didn't believe in lockdowns due to their critical thinking are still able to rationally discuss. Those who opposed lockdowns, purely because of their libertarian leanings are now firmly in the Putin is an evil madman, no discussion camp.
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-e05/comments?utm_source=url
It's interesting that adults when it comes to political issues adopt such black and white thinking on issues, and become so vulnerable to propaganda. There was a significant amount of evidence before the Iraq war that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, and much of what Bush/Cheney was spewing were lies, but of course he was supported on both sides of the political isle and backed by a complicit press that supported those lies. However even after the war, many years after, when it was shown no such weapons existed, I would still here people rationalize our invasion by saying he got rid of the weapons of mass destruction before the war. Perhaps they were unable to acknowledge the US engaging in a lie of a war that killed, injured and displaced so many, and they bought the lie which in a way made them complicit.
He did pursue weapons of mass destruction during the First Iraq War. We found and dismantled his nuclear weapons lab.
That he was pursuing WMDs earlier and viewing international inspection before the second war as part of a “who has the biggest dick” competition… if you let the inspectors in, you have shown your neighbors you have no dick… suggested to me that he could have been pursuing them. Qadaffi did let the inspectors in in that time frame.
There were no weapons of mass destruction which was used as a pretext for war in Iraq. All those accusations along with those aluminum tubes were BS. We wanted to take him out along with other middle eastern countries that were on the agenda of people like Cheney for a long time. Just look at our wars, many wars in the middle east. None can be justified, including our sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia to slaughter the people of Yemen. Look at all the covert activity carried out by the CIA that killed some 6 million people even before our wars in the middle east began. We complain endlessly about Iran but we overturned Mohammad Mosaddegh back in the 1950's, a democratically elected president. Let's not forget In August 1964, the United States entered the Vietnam War after reports of an unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. But the reports were false — and Johnson knew it.
The worse part was, President Bush made a comedy routine out of the search for WMD.
I remember, those WMD have to be somewhere. I can't stand him, or Cheney.
Damn system won't let me like your comment, but yes this little comedy made it so blatant that they had zero, zero respect for the American people.
That's an appealing narrative; too bad it's false. ABC News interviewed Saddam's FBI debiefer, and the upshot was that Iraq ran the most successful deception campaign since the XX Committee during World War II. Saddam was convinced that the only way to prevent Iran invading him was to convince Iran that he had WMD. The French and the Russians assured him that he could do this without risk, because between them they could control the idiot Bush.
Oops.
Qaddafi gave up his nine WMD sites — of which four were unknown to the international community — a couple of weeks after Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq. Though the usual suspects insist that was only an amazing coincidence!
When Saddam Hussein was left in power at the end of the first Gulf War, he became convinced that the US wanted him in power, and from that point on ignored all the bellicose rhetoric. Just as Putin ignored the rhetoric from the Biden administration and paid attention to its giving its imprimatur to his pipeline bypassing Ukraine.
Your first paragraph is correct, the second incorrect. Inspectors were inspecting Iraq but not close to finished (it's a big country, as the US learned when trying to control it) when Bush decided, "Enough" and attacked. Not unlike the 2000 election when they were counting votes in Florida.
The inspectors said there was no WMD. Blix, Ritter.
As far as they had checked they had found no WMD, correct. They just wanted to finish their job. Hans Blix was my fucking hero speaking out about how he was not able to finish his job.
Kinzinger will say or do anything for his 15 min. & MSM uses him like the corrupt stooge he is!
Media loves an anti- Trump Republican, and the anti-Trump Republicans love the media praise. Romney goes on TV to pontificate to the same people who in 2012 called him racist, a teenage bully, a dog abuser, and who ate up "the 80s called, they want their foreign policy back."
What of us libertarians who used our critical thinking skills to determine that lockdowns were not needed?
Nan, you don't have to be a libertarian to know evil when you see it.
Mitt Romney has called out Americans who support Russian president Vladimir Putin as being “almost treasonous” “How anybody in this country, which loves freedom, can side with Vladimir Putin, who is an oppressor, a dictator, he kills people, he imprisons his political opponents, he has been an adversary of America at every chance he’s had, it’s unthinkable to me, it’s almost treasonous,” he told host Dana Bash. Maybe poor Romney has lost a bit, or big bit of his memory and has forgotten our many wars that killed and displaced millions of people, imprisoned people in black sites, and in Guantanomo where they were tortured. If he doesn't have dementia he''s a hypocritical SOB.
Like Glenn so eloquently said in this article, if you question any action the US takes in response to Russia’s actions, you are a de-facto supporter of Putin. Nuance is not allowed. Resistance to the government line is treason.
Those who opposed lockdowns, purely because of their libertarian leanings are now firmly in the Putin is an evil madman, no discussion camp.
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?!?!?!?!?
It is never wise to categorize people and to assume that you know what they think. Dr. Rand Paul is a libertarian. Has he gone on record as saying that Putin is an evil madman? I am a libertarian with no interest in Ukraine. Cannabis should not be a Schedule 1 drug. Oops. Did my mind just wander?
I agree, its not wise to categorise people but I like to look for patterns.
Fractals Rock.
My browser still shows 3 of your comments and none of mine. No idea what to do. I remember our conversation, but this one is, although frustrating, more pleasant.
I didn't phrase that very well. There are a group of anti lockdowners who opposed them because of their love of freedom but as soon as a different divisive issue crops up, that doesn't involve their liberties, they lose their critical thinking abilities.
If so, that is beyond sad.
Of course anti-Russian sentiment is high in European countries formally ruled by the Russian-dominated USSR. For the same reason anti-Nazi sentiment is high among Jews. In those countries, the Soviets killed millions of people, so that nearly every family can remember a relative or relatives they killed.
In fact, the Russians killed my mother’s father. He was a high school teacher; his crime was lending pre-revolutionary books to some of his students. He was put to death; his students went to Siberia for long terms (except for the informer).
I would think anti-Nazi sentiment would be high among Jews, and they are, except for people like Nuland, Jewish, and neocons in general who during the Obama administration instigated a coup against it's elected government and used a bunch of neo-nazi's to do it. The ultra right and these neo-nazi groups to this day continue to extol the virtues of those who assisted Hitler in the extermination of the Jews and Poles.
"Ultra right" is not related to "neo-nazis". Nazis were and are on the left, just not as far left as the Communists. Nazi after all means National Socialist. They acted like socialists, taking over massive amounts of the economy. Hitler never said "I am concerned that our government is too large and will slash our spending by 25% by the end of my 5-year term" or "Our military is much too big and I will cut the number of people conscripted by 33% over the next 3 years." He did the exact opposite.
I'll believe you when hundreds of them don't get together and celebrate Bandera and erect statues of him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mfv2M9q8vc
Max Blumenthal and "Texas" Bentley in Donetsk.
https://vimeo.com/252426896 Ukraine on Fire. This was really interesting which I watched a while back, or perhaps you have seen it already.
To give you some idea of whether the Nazis thought of Stepan Bandera as a friend, he spent most of the war locked up in a Nazi concentration camp! They let him out only when they got really desperate, towards the end.
Like some of our Founding Fathers, Bandera is an ambiguous figure. Jews were part of his organization at various times; while at other times his organization was accused of atrocities against Jews. Nazi-hunters seem to have decided against pursuing him; he was murdered in 1959 by famed KGB assassin, Bohdan Stashynsky.
At some point you’d think common sense would take hold, and one would take stories about Jews supporting neo-Nazis with a grain or two of salt.
In reality, European neo-Nazis like Putin, for crushing Muslims and suppressing homosexuals. They see him as the Defender of the White Race. (Some ultra-right Christians see him as Defender of the Faith.)
On the other hand, Nazis do not see Ukraine’s Jewish President as the Defender of the White Race.
In reality, the Maidan movement that toppled the Russian puppet President of Ukraine was a mass movement of the Ukrainian people, against a traitor who had left Ukraine militarily helpless while looting the country.
Nuland is Jewish and so his her husband, Kagan, as well as other neocons who supported the overthrow of this government which is what I was referencing, and I did so because I thought it was disgusting when they used a bunch of neo nazi's to bring down the elected regime. I didn't make a blanketed statement about the Jewish people in general. Putin is not a neo-nazi!!!!!!!!!!! 25 million Russian lives lost in WWII to bring down Hitler. No Taras, he is in Ukraine because those ultra right wingers and neo nazi's who believe Ukraine should be pure and a place where only Ukranians reside have killed thousands of ethnic Russians, especially the separatist in the Donbass region. Well, in terms of Ukraines poverty no doubt there was lots of corruption but now it is considered the most corrupt government in all of Europe.
According to you, “ultra right wingers and neo nazi's” elected a Jewish President of Ukraine in 2019. Can’t you see the absurdity of that? For reasons I previously mentioned, Putin really is the darling of European neo-Nazis and ultra-rightists.
Ukrainians and Russians are two closely related branches of the Slavic family. Nobody thinks of them as different races. The argument between them in Ukraine is about what language the government uses. The Ukrainian government is trying to bring back the Ukrainian language, the use of which Russian overlords had spent centuries trying to discourage.
I guess you’ve forgotten, or never knew, that Germany and Russia started World War II as allies, with Germany attacking Poland from the west and Russia attacking Poland from the east. Stalin was so enamored of his partnership with Hitler that he refused to believe his own spies, when they warned him that Germany was about to turn on him.
So the Soviets lost a great many lives in the war they helped Hitler start. It didn’t help that, just before the war, Stalin had executed all of the Red Army’s experienced commanders in his Great Purge, seeing them as potential rivals. The new commanders spent the lives of Soviet soldiers like water, because if they didn’t they would be suspected of lacking in zeal and purged in their turn.
Ha, ha, ha, you're kidding, right?
Basically, Maidan was 1/6 with the assistance of the State Department and CIA.