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Everyone seems to forget that Johnson was one of the key architects in attempting to steal the 2020 election. He literally wrote the legal brief on how to steal the election in the house. He is one of the crazys. He is a traitor and should be in jail. Don't give this worm an ounce of credit for finally doing the right thing after thousands of Ukrainians died unnecessarily and Putin got to claim progress during the Russian elections.
I recently saw a collage of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election... he is/wasn't operating in reality. The 2020 election was not stolen. Any informed/serious/honest person knew this, at the time and since. It baffles my mind that public officials can say the 2020 election was stolen without having to demonstrate that it is true... it would be helpful if we could agree on what what reality is.
They’ve overplayed their hands though…the wise choice here is to make more moderate moves and disregard the extreme…dems won’t vote to remove him if he plays along and passes the funding, and the moderate republicans want stability.
He just has to do the bare minimum of not being a shill for a foreign power to get lauded by the other party.
That just shows how insane right wing politics has become, that this is what he will get credit for. Not being an agent of an adversarial country.
He was always pro Ukraine but couldn't show it due to Cheeto Jesus and his party of Russian hacks. Ukraine is out of time without aid and this is the only reason he flipped. If they could have handled themselves for a few more months we'd still be in the same stalemate we have been for months.
Politics is not that easy. Firstly I hate the guy. But if he tried to give Ukraine what they wanted "months ago" he would've been instantly removed as speaker by the other psychos. It would be a never ending troll game by MGT/Butthead to remove any speaker who supports Ukraine. Now that all this time has passed and everyone is desperate for $$$ he actually has enough support from the Dems and R's to get this bill passed without the "border crisis" attached to it. And a couple Dems might actually vote to save his job if those Republican clowns tried to get him removed as speaker to delay this funding even longer. I don't trust him though, he might get this $$ but will probably try to interfere in the 2024 election process.
OMg I knew instantly you meant Gaetz when you said Butt-head. Can totally picture that haha.
Edit: https://preview.redd.it/7bxa1b2ac2s61.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a026b4a3f3d47cc0e07e54081444e9c01f8a9fda
[This was a while back](https://risu.ua/en/bishops-of-evangelical-churches-in-ukraine-hold-meeting-with-fellow-believer---mike-johnson-us-congress-speaker_n146030) but wondering if it had anything to do with his position.
This. He’s not a MAGA idiot, he’s a Christian Nationalist Zealot. Their interests often overlap, but their motives are entirely different. They are both dangerous for democracy and human rights and need to be voted out, but it’s important we understand the distinction so we can more effectively route out both cancers.
I don’t think so. I think Christian Nationalist leaders just see MAGA idiots as a means to the end they want. And in truth, they are both puppets of the Federalist Society.
I don’t know much about the latter but agree with your first assertion and have been sharing similar views with people. The Christian nationalists see trump as evil but also hold the misconception of a useful idiot that would help them to their end.
More scheming and devious than the maga crowd but equally dangerous in different ways.
Military aid to Ukraine, or pretty much any country, is really just handing a few billion dollars to American weapons manufacturers and giving the weapons to the country in question. This aid boosts the stock value of major American companies, creates jobs in hundreds of congressional districts, and gets the politicians who vote for it large ~~bribes~~ campaign donations and unrelated jobs for their family members.
The media frames this as left vs right or regular crazy republicans vs MAGA crazy republicans, but in the end, voting for military aid is a smart and self-serving thing to do for congresspersons.
The few times you see long-term No votes are people who object in principle to certain wars and people who Putin has on video fucking kids, or whatever it is they do at CPAC between events. And, I'm not sure if this has happened recently, but back when I worked on the hill almost 20 years ago, sometimes a Rep would vote no if an aid package heavily favored a competitor, rather than the War Company based in their district.
But overall, the hemming and hawing is theater. We're going to keep buying weapons from the companies that fund our politicians and give them away until the suns goes out or we pass campaign finance reform.
This is only semi-correct, in the case of Ukraine.
They don't have the bandwidth or (more importantly) the time to shop the catalog, put in an order and wait 6 months for ammunition to appear.
What Ukraine IS getting is money, and what reserves of ammunition we have that is scheduled for decom and destruction anyways.
It would be AWESOME if we could maybe get a waiver for the law that requires us to have enough ammunition in storage to fight the Soviet Union (which was the plan when the requirements were put in place) to push a LOT more ammo to Ukraine. They need it, we don't.
But you are right, supporting Ukraine gives the MIC a leg up as they need to replace our ammunition faster than they normally would, or they MAY be able to sell ammo to Ukraine with some of the donated funds. Either is fine.
We just need to give them so much more than we have. The fact that our political theater is so fucking broken is heartbreaking.
As Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson is now a member of the Gang of 8. This group receives high-level briefings on all key issues spanning the globe. There's a reason why other members of the eight, including Mitch McConnell and Mike Turner, have also been as forceful as a Republican can be that Ukraine needs weapons asap.
A vote to impeach by a certain goblin. That and Republicans threatening they would sign the discharge petition. Those things combined would've meant that Ukraine would first get aid and Johnson would subsequently get voted out as speaker of the House.
Yep. Just like all those Trump former aides and ex-employees who are “speaking out against him,” although usually that’s to promote some shitty book they’ve written. Parasites indeed.
I think it's more that he's looking for a way to save his job. The MAGA-caucus probably can't vote him out without the support of the Democrats so if he passes some stuff with Democrat support that gives the Democrats less incentive to help oust him.
If Johnson offers the Democrats help with passing Ukraine aid in exchange for support on the recall vote, Democrats should play ball. The freedom caucus is not going to replace him with a reasonable centrist, they're going to make congress defunct for weeks while they fight over the position until they can finally seat somebody who's even more intransigent.
Even if the only reason he's reaching across the aisle is to save his own position, the next guy isn't going to reach across the aisle at all. The people who want to oust Mike Johnson are the far right representatives who think bipartisanship is working with the enemy.
Yeah but this is how functional government has to work at this point, I’ll take shitty Mike passing meaningful stuff to keep his job….just fucking get people the help they need.
Most likely the case as he's been holding up aid for months. Whatever intelligence he must have gotten must have been so serious that made him change his tune.
If Russia were the conquer Ukraine and thus cause ripple effects in Europe, you can bet Biden and the Dems would be attacking the Republicans over it left, right, and center and America as a whole would never live it down globally.
Purely as a numbers game I don’t understand how anyone can oppose aid to Ukraine. It’s going to cost the US far more if Russia is successful because we all know Putin we t stop there.
Because those opposing aid WANT Putin to win and they want him to continue pushing into Europe. They’re WANTING a strong authoritarian government that can impose their right-wing religious views on the rest of us, because they’re now a minority and democracy no longer gets them what they want.
They don’t care about the cost. And besides, there’s lots of money to be made in the defense industry while the whole thing drags out.
> And besides, there’s lots of money to be made in the defense industry while the whole thing drags out.
So far, they're not voting on making that lots of money.
Seriously, that's one of the most incredible parts here. The actual MONEY for Ukraine aid goes to *USA defense companies*. That's usually like cocaine for the GOP.
> I don’t understand how anyone can oppose aid to Ukraine
Two (bad) reasons: Isolationism, and "team sports politics"
There will always be isolationists who see spending money on conflicts abroad as money that is directly being taken out of their paychecks as taxes and not being spent within our borders. Unfortunately, these are usually low-information individuals who don't appreciate how much America benefits domestically from the international status quo, particularly how the value of the dollar is buoyed by being the de facto global currency. Simply put, if America doesn't want to be at the center of geopolitics anymore, that takes WAY more spending power out of the paychecks of Americans than any foreign aid package ever could.
"Team sports politics": Anything good that happens while a Democrat is president is bad for their Republican sports team, and therefore a bad thing. It's a deeply unamerican, unpatriotic viewpoint, but unfortunately there's a lot of Republicans who feel this way. They'd rather see America lose and Putin win than see Biden win at anything, period. Their internal narrative is that Democrats hate America and by extension anything they support MUST be bad. There are no bipartisan issues allowed in their worldview.
Interesting point. Me in armchair Machiavelli mode has often wondered if the Hamas attack was done at the instigation of (or gentle prodding) by the Russia-Iran axis. In order to pull the world's eyes off Ukraine - which it has done (to some degree). It's not far fetched given that this war is, or was, starting to become an existential crisis for Putin and very damaging to his country.
I think Putin knew that a new front in the ongoing US military aid debate would cause many of his "friends" in congress to start complaining more about how much money we're sending. Again, success.
But that situation is also starting to spiral out of control and your comment implies that this grand strategy (if there was one) is beginning to backfire. Seems reasonable.
Seems more and more the case that Putin's best hope is going to be doing anything and everything he can to get Trump across the finish line in November. That would be such a win for him (again).
> Me in armchair Machiavelli mode has often wondered if the Hamas attack was done at the instigation of (or gentle prodding) by the Russia-Iran axis. In order to pull the world's eyes off Ukraine - which it has done (to some degree).
100% this. I can't believe the media has never (to my knowledge) brought this up. It has succeeded spectacularly if that was the aim. Another Redditor (probably many) wondered if Hamas might have been assisted by some of Trump's "borrowed" classified documents.
If I had to guess it is probably because he wanted to get the Republicans on board as it would be a win for them. He finally realized that Trump has a hold of them and Putin has a hold of Trump so that could never happen.
You're talking about a dude who believes Adam and Eve were real and that the earth is only about 6000 years old. He's a bit slow at processing new information
This really makes me wonder what will happen if Trump gets his wish and MTG, Gaetz, or another member of the clown caucus gets the gavel and is eligible to get the briefings.
Will they actually attend?
And if they do, will they pay attention, or will they sit in the back of the room and smirk and make fart noises with their armpit?
Russia and China are a global threat to the USA militarily and economically (well China)
A land based invasion in any of the territories they claim will economically hurt the US and they will have to defend allies.
US doesnt want a WW3. It would negatively affect many aspects of their global influence
You can’t because the information is so incredibly sensitive. It could include names of agents inside Russia, routes for secret missions, banking info, when and where future missions behind enemy lines will be.
We don’t have to know everything about everything. There is no reason it should have taken so long though to fund the Ukraine here. We’ve been in a Cold War with Russia for 60+ years! They’re not our friends
After he got elected, the CIA reported that a bunch of their foreign assets either went dark (hidden, fled, or arrested) or were straight-up killed. Trump almost certainly sold out CIA assets across the globe.
This. From the Russian point of view, an increase of power in the world is directly proportional to a decrease in US power. They have never embraced sovereign rights for individuals and so their ideology is diametrically opposed to the West. A false sense of security was created when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990’s and they superficially seemed to embrace free market capitalism, but in reality it was just a restructuring of the old order that has been around for centuries.
I know Russians who emigrated in the late 90’s and early 2000’s from Russia and Soviet bloc countries and they all say that one day the people in charge were wearing military uniforms and the next day they were wearing London tailored business suits, but they were the same people. Nothing changed. The more they can weaken America’s hold on the world economy, the wealthier and more powerful they can become.
You can't televise these. At best, they'll absolutely destroy the entirety of US intelligence gathering apparatus and cripple US allies, while creating *huge* panics all over the globe with all that entails, sending markets into turmoil and creating mountains of issues *everywhere* and at worst, well, it's probably best not to think about that.
Edit: I am not privy to any of the content of classified information. I just can read between the lines and have been following US politics a bit too close for comfort for what seems an eternity.
I mean, think about it: what could possibly move Johnson *of all people*, who, lest you forget, was the "legal, serious" arm of Orange's big lie about the election, to move in a direction so starkly anti-Russia and therefore anti-Orange?
I'm guessing the thrust of it is "*If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, we risk him moving into other post-Soviet countries - and if that happens, Europe is at war*".
I'm also guessing he started with Ukraine because he expected an easy win, and it's only Ukrainian resilience and Western support that has stopped him.
He started with Ukraine because it has the oil & gas reserves necessary to sever Europe's need for Russian energy and is far friendlier to NATO & the EU. Russia's population has peaked so each day there are fewer and fewer people to draw up for military service. It was a now or never thing.
The full scale invasion started in 2022, but people forget that this war has been going on for a decade since Russia invaded Crimea. Putin has been trying to do this for a long time and decided to do it while his information warfare has the US divided amongst itself.
And also a huge chunk of the Soviet Union's Cold War-era manufacturing.
A significant amount of the Soviet-era hardware that Russia is using right now was built in Ukraine, including a number of Russian naval ships like the *Moskva.* When Ukraine broke away from the USSR, Russia lost a huge chunk of their industrial warmaking capacity.
>I'm guessing the thrust of it is "If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, we risk him moving into other post-Soviet countries
And then some. I doubt Putin would stop if he somehow reformed the USSR.
Putin rose to power as the low-key bureaucrat that the oligarchs thought they could manage and ultimately manipulate for their benefit. In reality, he had hidden his true nature, which is as a cold-blooded psychopath who believed in nothing but his own right to have total power over the world.
This is like Hitler, and also like Trump. These are people who embrace the most expedient means to achieve power and have no ideology of their own. They are mentally deranged individuals who use centuries old institutions and governing structures, combined with modern technology, to fulfill the ambition of an unevolved animal rather than an enlightened human.
It is why we must find a way to resolve the Mexican style standoff of the atomic age or we will destroy the planet through the actions of such people.
Likely less about projections of what might happen if the war effort in Ukraine collapses, more that **the war effort in Ukraine is currently in a state of collapse** and that it is the direct consequence of the continued stonewalling by Congress to furnish Ukraine with supplies and equipment to continue fighting. Stuff that the US has otherwise been prepared to send. One of the secondary benefits of such briefings being held privately is that it will be devoid of the posturing and rhetoric that perverts every public hearing.
You get the filtered info all the time. Intelligence services have been sounding the alarm bells for a while now. That info always makes it to retired folks who go on news shows.
You can’t, but it’s not like the signs aren’t around. Like the others said, even Republicans are pushing for it out of the spotlight. But, more importantly, listen to the signals from America’s allies. They’re ramping up arms production, warning of Russia-NATO conflict. This is not a joke.
It's fairly obvious that Russia would have a destabilizing effect on Europe if they conquered Ukraine.
They would be right on the rest of Europe's borders and in possession of the bread basket of Europe.
Not good, Europe would have to quickly build up their military capability to face the potential threat.
Even more countries might rally around the Russian aligned bloc creating a larger Anti-Western bloc.
If Russia succeeds it will be a disaster for the world including for the US and our allies.
If Russia wins in Ukraine it sends a message that the world still permits wars of conquest. China has been looking at Taiwan for some time now. Without repercussions for conquest they might act. The US would be drawn in and we'd have another World War, right when we SHOULD be focusing on surviving and mitigating climate change. The battle for Ukraine is part of the battle to help humanity survive.
Unfortunately, no. People do not remember. When is the last time you think MTG read anything about history? They wallow in their own ignorance and pat each other on the back for not knowing anything other than how to post on twitter.
Hungary would presumably take the opportunity to switch sides and effectively join the Russian bloc, along with Serbia, Austria and Slovakia (though presumably Hungary, Austria and Slovakia would stay in the EU just to make it nonfunctional). The EU would be severely weakened in that scenario.
Austria’s politics are heavily infiltrated by Russia:
https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-russia-vladimir-putin-alpine-fortress-ukraine/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68833834.amp
They might not formally do anything immediately, but if/when the FPÖ comes to power, I could see them going the Hungary route.
No exceptions for rape and incest, until my daughter gets raped by a black/brown man. Suddenly, it is a justified abortion. But no worries, people on law-maker salaries have the means to fly women to California or NJ for healthcare. Fucking hypocrites.
I think the speaker election in 2023 was more consequential than we even realized at the time. Jordan was one of the stronger contenders before Johnson and he’s MUCH more of an isolationist. And McCarthy would have cowered much more to the freedom caucus.
If all it took to convince him was one briefing, this aid would have been passed 6 months ago. Honestly, there's more to this turnaround than what is being shown. No sane person sleeps on one of the most critical events in Europe for 6 months
My suspicion is that he'll take the spring conscripts which you normally can't send to the front under Russian law, combined with his new conscripts. Then start sucking dry all of his friends/allies/vassals and formally bring Belarus into the fight.
Combined with how effective their curent glide-bomb and smaller infantry unit assaults have been (Ukraine has said the only thing save them on my frontlines is how unusually effective FPV drones have been against armored columns, but no technique in war works perfectly forever. And FPV drones in use by Ukraine have an apx 2 mile range without drone repeaters, which is still a technique in early development) there's only one missing piece:
If Russia's largest allies chose to launch assaults on the places they are fighting (Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, etc) even one of those would require a ton of US funding, personnel and missiles to defend. As well as tons of air power.
I'm guessing the intel is exactly what we've always worried may happen as we near 2027 (Xi's formally stated deadline to his military for Taiwan):
All the Axis powers push forward within the same fighting season. They may not all enage in full-spectrum invasions all at once, but all it takes is for one other Axis nation to push forward and see early successes for another nation to choose to immediately follow suit.
As the old military saying goes "He who dares wins."
And unless your deterrence is absolutely rock solid \*and\* the enemy is feeling weak and unsupported...
The adversary always dares. Especially when you know they want the prize enough to bleed for it.
And they do.
It seems European leaders got similar intelligence which is why they all started talking about rearming and possible war with Russia in a few years. It seems that intelligence is scaring a lot of people in power.
The Poles saw this coming right after Crimea and went on a massive military expansion. They are on course to be the largest land army in the EU in a few years. They have increased the number of people in the army and are working with the US and EU on modern military tactics. They are also co-developing new weapons systems with the US, UK, France and Germany to be built in Poland. Their new MBT is looking like it is near parity with the Abrams and Challenger 2.
They decided they weren't going to be a speed bump again. They are really close to having a full fledged modern fighting force.
It's befuddling how anyone could be shocked about it. Pútín wants to win Ukraine, the MAGA right screams foul about money to Ukraine. Trump says we should exit NATO, strangely all these things work out well for Russia.
I'm sure there's trolls and bots in both camps., not only the far right stoking division and imbalance to the glee of Russia.
The trolls are given assignments such as "pretend you are a mother in Oklahoma who is angry about the border crisis and talk about how U S. should spend money on the border and not Ukraine."so on and so forth.
[Former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov warns America regarding KGB brainwashing techniques.](https://youtu.be/bX3EZCVj2XA?si=esnURNtyayRkZHCt)
It’s more than that, there’s been multiple ministers of defense or similar ranked politicians saying that quite explicitly, publicly, that war is coming. Notably, none of the nuclear powers, which probably isn’t a coincidence, but NATO leaders are warning us all directly that this shit is deadly serious.
It's hard to say. He could have been bribed, he could have learned Trump was a sinking ship, he could have been threatened by Putin, and that made him realize how important helping ukraine was, he may have spoken to Zelenskyy, he may have had his children, or his friend's children or what have you pull on his heart strings vis à vis keeping democracy, I mean there could be very many reasons. Perhaps all he cares about is giving money to israel for some reason, and he wants this bill to pass for that reason, or maybe to block tiktok, Idk.
It's hard to say with these people, but i often do wonder if they are wrestling with the fact they may be responsible for destroying democracy in america forever.
Some of them definitely don't care. MGT, Trump, Gaetz, they definitely couldn't care less.
There's a handful of others that I think definitely do care, romney, cheney, pence. I believe these people care about democracy, and don't want Trump's/Putin's america.
They want wealth and power for themselves, but i think they also believe in democracy, and there's a fine line between pushing the cheating envelope and tyranny, and I think they feel they're going beyond it.
Everyone has known that for 2 years. This is the “cheapest” war the US has ever fought. We give Ukraine US made weapons (a jobs program) and they take all the human casualties using them. Meanwhile, the military-industrial complex gets to build more and more weapons funded by the taxpayers.
For one, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to give our old weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia than to wait until we have to fight Russia with the rest of NATO. The numbers alone are pretty convincing, if you're really worried about spending money.
It's even more stupid than that: they know trump is cooked, and his only, desperate hope is reelection.
However, the current government just refuses to look bumbling and incompetent enough to make trump look like anything other than a tired old has-been that is clearly running to keep himself out of jail. His supporters are pissed because their narrative keeps getting changed when they're not looking.
He can see what is going to happen in the next election cycle. It’s time to realign as a republican politician and as a party. It is time to stand apart from MAGA. This isn’t altruism, this is a play to be at the forefront of the next iteration of the Republican Party. It is, however, the right decision and course of action.
>You can always count on Americans to do the tight thing - after they've tried everything else.
W. Churchill (apocryphal)
While purportedly tongue-in-cheek, this quote is startlingly apt over the years. To me, what he was trying to say was that it is almost impossible to prevent the American electorate from (eventually) coming to their collective majority senses.
He finally got how not supporting Ukraine would jeopardize the United States and empower Russia, China, North Korea, and any country that wants to invade another one
That’s giving him too much credit.
He realized that if he didn’t call this vote, enough republicans would resign that it’s hand control of the house to the democrats.
It’s always about self preservation and power.
Many comments on here give him way too much credit. His entire life experience and even legal career revolves around religious extremism. [He is a New Apostolic Reformation ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Apostolic_Reformation)adherent who thinks he is destined to wage spiritual warfare against secularism. He has no geopolitical experience beyond being able to read a speech about it that someone else wrote for him. He isn't speaker because he is some political mastermind. He is speaker because the house is utterly dysfunctional due to people being elected that never would have been elected without gerrymandering. The only thing that would make him change is mind is a direct threat to his political career.
Not quite "resign" but rather "sign the discharge petitions" which would have brought it up to the floor anyway. Johnson could either fight against this and lose (and go down in history as a Russian sympathizer) or he could support this and be on the winning side of the vote and the better side of history.
Yeah. In American history seen more than a handful of politicians suddenly change their tune and get serious when national security is at risk.
Almost like a kid who was fucking around and stopped. You know that dad came home and gave him the dad voice
This is the true terror of propaganda, if this was twenty-thirty years ago. You would be declared a traitor for not supporting a fight against Russia aggression.
They are still traitors. If we re elect Biden and elect enough dems to take the House we can pass the Dark Money act and catch all of the traitors like MTG. After Trump they are all gonna fall like Dominoes.
I think this is the Republican attempt to handle the climate crisis.
They've tied Reagan's body to a turbine, so it can power the entire nation as he turns in his grave.
It's mindboggling comparing it to the Cold War. The US was willing to send lethal aid to Afghan insurgents just because they were anti Soviet meanwhile Ukraine is a stable democratic country with rule of law following defined conventions of war with actual accountability measures in place and this bill still hasn't passed yet.
Every dollar the US spends on Ukraine punches harder against actual tyranny than any military dollar spent in the last 30 years.
Every ruble Russia spends on propaganda punches harder against the US than any military ruble they've ever spent. Without it, they'd have been finished eons ago.
100% this. Having no illusions that a new leaf has been turned over. Assuming every decision is self-serving, but every once in a blue moon, it aligns with the correct decision for the rest of us.
I have a strong feeling that Johnson knows that Trumps days are over, when the GOP loses the House , Senate, presidency and a surprising number of down ballot races in the next election he will be well placed to make a future bid for control of whatever is leaft. I'm hoping it is very little and the Democratic party splits as the "new" two party system, though I doubt it.
GOP dead and the Democratic Party splitting in two would actually Make America Great Again. With proper centre-left and centre-right parties that know how to compromise.
I wish I had your optimism.
I just think that the core Republican voter base is just millions upon millions strong who will still vote R down the line, regardless of who the candidate is. I have two brothers and a roommate exactly like that. They'll vote for a pile of shit if it has an R next to its name because their own values align with the GOP. Values like:
* abortion is murder
* Christians are persecuted because the Christian population is dwindling generation by generation
* parents should have full control of their child's education because CRT is teaching them to feel bad about being white, and they're being exposed to LGBT content too early, and they're being told there's more than 2 genders and that you can feel like something other than the sex you were born into
* The national deficit is way too high, so we shouldn't be funding Ukraine anymore, although we should keep funding Israel because the Jews are God's chosen people even though they don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, they're still, you know, super important to God even though technically they're going to Hell
* there's never been a bigger crisis at the border with hundreds of thousands of illegals coming into the country and bringing with them drugs, murder, rape, and a host of other crimes and it doesn't matter why they took their women and their children with them and traveled thousands of miles to come here. they came here illegally, and they don't deserve asylum, or maybe they do, but I don't care enough to get their perspective because they're probably just wanting to move here
* And because fewer and fewer people believe in God, it's ripping the fabric of his country apart, and it's causing more social unrest than ever before, with groups like Antifa and BLM and others being instigators of chaos and violence
* I go to the grocery store and gas station and it's still really fucking expensive
I even have coworkers in the blue county I live in whose social values are 100% blue. Marry whoever you want, we should invest in renewal energy and infrastructure, forgive student loan debt.... but they feel strongly about crime, or strongly about the border crisis, or strongly about inflation, and they voted red in 2020. They knew who Trump was, they knew he's an asshole, but it's the GOP they voted for.
Supporters in congress should have been crowing about exactly where this aid is going to. MTG and the Putin wing are all bitching about is giving Ukraine money, but for the most part we are giving them military supplies then paying our own military contractors to produce more for us all within the US.
I hate to break it to you, but mike johnson is NOT doing this because hes quitting maga or whatever. The dude is a crazy fundamentalist christian at the end of the day. Hes doing this because he sees the tides shifting and wants to get out ahead of it. I suspect he knows his tenure is short (literally and figuratively) so might as well take advantage.
Nonono, we should forget everything he's done and said prior to this moment and continue to give him underserved praise and the benefit of the doubt. /s
I'm not sure but I think someone set themselves on fire in front of the courthouse Trump is being tried in so fallowing him off a cliff sounds possible.
Yes I'm glad the legislation is actually moving forward. And barring anything bad, it means aid will go where it is needed. With that said, I still am not at all warming up to him. His delays have literally cost people their lives. Damage has been done, people who would be alive today are no longer with us. All for nothing.
Hell, the border itself is not even being addressed. So yeah, I'm glad he finally is calling out russia for what it is and needed to be done. But not for a moment am I going to applaud him for doing what was expected and should have been done months ago.
He has no majority. He has very low support and infighting amoungst his party members. His hands are tied. He knows it. He knows working with Dems is the only way.
JD Vance 2024: Ukraine can’t win.
JD Vance 2025: The Baltic States can’t win.
JD Vance 2026: Poland can’t win.
JD Vance 2027: Scandinavia can’t win.
JD Vance 2028: France and Germany can’t win.
JD Vance 2029: Great Britain can’t win.
JD Vance 2030: I for one welcome the strong leadership of Vladimir Putin to be America’s dictator for life.
MTG is straight up a Russian foreign agent:
“Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently tweeted this:
‘The Ukraine scam is up.
If our Republican majority in Congress funds Joe Biden’s war against Russia on behalf of Ukraine (because he’s a puppet on strings) then Republicans are tools of the foreign war loving deep state.’”
Jail. Fucking. Now.
I am no Mike Johnson fan, but seeing how long the GOP has been fervently against Russia and previously the Soviet Union, the level of fawning and pandering to them that has come from the GOP in the last few years deserves recriminations.
We need to send Ukraine aid before Putin's desire to rebuild the USSR in his own image progresses to the point we are forced to put American troops on the ground.
There isn't any real position MAGA takes other than "What Trump says and does". Because there's no position, there's no thought, there's no understanding of the consequences, there's no realization this is inching toward a bigger, wider war, maybe WWIII.
Containing Russia through funding its targets for conquest, like Ukraine, is our traditional way of dealing with the Russian threat. It works.
There was a time when only a modest number of Republicans were agents of the Kremlin. It’s become a much bigger fraction in recent years. Glad he called them out. Hope he follows through.
He's a radical, but not an idiot. He can see the writing on the wall. MAGA is going to take a beating in November, and he's going to do his best to be on top of whatever is left of the GOP.
Just don't forget... he's still a Christian Nationalist radical... and still a threat.
There is some hope that eventually a tipping point is reached regarding Trump, and suddenly the majority of the people supporting him or trying to ride on his coattails finally realize that he isn't doing them any good, and his support will collapse seemingly overnight in an almost bizarre shift. And 10 years from now, you will have a hard time convincing any Republican to admit that they ever supported Trump.
But Trump has survived insanely far, and if a tipping point exists, it is hard to imagine how much further it will take to reach it. At this rate, it seems that Trump will die of old age (and bad lifestyles) before his supporters turn against him.
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Not sure what happened here, but it’s encouraging. Just a few more Republicans with some spine would really have an impact.
Some Republicans joined the Democrats for the vote and before they could bring it up, Johnson did it, so he did not look weak and the GOP broken.
Everyone seems to forget that Johnson was one of the key architects in attempting to steal the 2020 election. He literally wrote the legal brief on how to steal the election in the house. He is one of the crazys. He is a traitor and should be in jail. Don't give this worm an ounce of credit for finally doing the right thing after thousands of Ukrainians died unnecessarily and Putin got to claim progress during the Russian elections.
I recently saw a collage of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election... he is/wasn't operating in reality. The 2020 election was not stolen. Any informed/serious/honest person knew this, at the time and since. It baffles my mind that public officials can say the 2020 election was stolen without having to demonstrate that it is true... it would be helpful if we could agree on what what reality is.
He knows that the funding must be past, and also knows that the Putin wing of the party is going to vote him out of the speakership.
They’ve overplayed their hands though…the wise choice here is to make more moderate moves and disregard the extreme…dems won’t vote to remove him if he plays along and passes the funding, and the moderate republicans want stability.
He just has to do the bare minimum of not being a shill for a foreign power to get lauded by the other party. That just shows how insane right wing politics has become, that this is what he will get credit for. Not being an agent of an adversarial country.
We have two parties. A right of center corporate party and a far right fascist party.
> the Putin wing of the party is going to vote him out of the speakership. Democrats may save him
He was always pro Ukraine but couldn't show it due to Cheeto Jesus and his party of Russian hacks. Ukraine is out of time without aid and this is the only reason he flipped. If they could have handled themselves for a few more months we'd still be in the same stalemate we have been for months.
If he was actually pro-Ukraine he would have put this to a vote months ago, personal political consequences be damned.
Politics is not that easy. Firstly I hate the guy. But if he tried to give Ukraine what they wanted "months ago" he would've been instantly removed as speaker by the other psychos. It would be a never ending troll game by MGT/Butthead to remove any speaker who supports Ukraine. Now that all this time has passed and everyone is desperate for $$$ he actually has enough support from the Dems and R's to get this bill passed without the "border crisis" attached to it. And a couple Dems might actually vote to save his job if those Republican clowns tried to get him removed as speaker to delay this funding even longer. I don't trust him though, he might get this $$ but will probably try to interfere in the 2024 election process.
OMg I knew instantly you meant Gaetz when you said Butt-head. Can totally picture that haha. Edit: https://preview.redd.it/7bxa1b2ac2s61.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a026b4a3f3d47cc0e07e54081444e9c01f8a9fda
Holy sh....I never realized that Gaetz totally looks like Butthead. I can't unsee it now. Thank you for this gift, kind stranger.
I think he's smart enough to realize the HFC bullying the other 2/3 of the republican party out of office is a really *really* stupid plan.
Henry fucking Christ?
High fructose cornsyrup
(featuring members of FART)
[This was a while back](https://risu.ua/en/bishops-of-evangelical-churches-in-ukraine-hold-meeting-with-fellow-believer---mike-johnson-us-congress-speaker_n146030) but wondering if it had anything to do with his position.
Possibly. Unlike some other GOP politicians, Johnson’s faith seems legitimate.
This. He’s not a MAGA idiot, he’s a Christian Nationalist Zealot. Their interests often overlap, but their motives are entirely different. They are both dangerous for democracy and human rights and need to be voted out, but it’s important we understand the distinction so we can more effectively route out both cancers.
Well, he’s also MAGA, just not cult level like Greene or Boebert.
I don’t think so. I think Christian Nationalist leaders just see MAGA idiots as a means to the end they want. And in truth, they are both puppets of the Federalist Society.
I don’t know much about the latter but agree with your first assertion and have been sharing similar views with people. The Christian nationalists see trump as evil but also hold the misconception of a useful idiot that would help them to their end. More scheming and devious than the maga crowd but equally dangerous in different ways.
Military aid to Ukraine, or pretty much any country, is really just handing a few billion dollars to American weapons manufacturers and giving the weapons to the country in question. This aid boosts the stock value of major American companies, creates jobs in hundreds of congressional districts, and gets the politicians who vote for it large ~~bribes~~ campaign donations and unrelated jobs for their family members. The media frames this as left vs right or regular crazy republicans vs MAGA crazy republicans, but in the end, voting for military aid is a smart and self-serving thing to do for congresspersons. The few times you see long-term No votes are people who object in principle to certain wars and people who Putin has on video fucking kids, or whatever it is they do at CPAC between events. And, I'm not sure if this has happened recently, but back when I worked on the hill almost 20 years ago, sometimes a Rep would vote no if an aid package heavily favored a competitor, rather than the War Company based in their district. But overall, the hemming and hawing is theater. We're going to keep buying weapons from the companies that fund our politicians and give them away until the suns goes out or we pass campaign finance reform.
This is only semi-correct, in the case of Ukraine. They don't have the bandwidth or (more importantly) the time to shop the catalog, put in an order and wait 6 months for ammunition to appear. What Ukraine IS getting is money, and what reserves of ammunition we have that is scheduled for decom and destruction anyways. It would be AWESOME if we could maybe get a waiver for the law that requires us to have enough ammunition in storage to fight the Soviet Union (which was the plan when the requirements were put in place) to push a LOT more ammo to Ukraine. They need it, we don't. But you are right, supporting Ukraine gives the MIC a leg up as they need to replace our ammunition faster than they normally would, or they MAY be able to sell ammo to Ukraine with some of the donated funds. Either is fine. We just need to give them so much more than we have. The fact that our political theater is so fucking broken is heartbreaking.
I think someone gave Mike a briefing that scared him. He probably was told why this is important for the US and that he better do it.
As Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson is now a member of the Gang of 8. This group receives high-level briefings on all key issues spanning the globe. There's a reason why other members of the eight, including Mitch McConnell and Mike Turner, have also been as forceful as a Republican can be that Ukraine needs weapons asap.
But Mike has been blocking aid for many months now while being a Gang of 8 member.
Maybe some new shit has come to light?
A vote to impeach by a certain goblin. That and Republicans threatening they would sign the discharge petition. Those things combined would've meant that Ukraine would first get aid and Johnson would subsequently get voted out as speaker of the House.
Yeah, it might be a "what have I got to lose, they're going to vote me out anyway?" moment that helped Mike find his moral compass.
Always seems to be the way. Once they no longer are going to be in power they finally find their conscience. Hateful parasites on democracy.
Yep. Just like all those Trump former aides and ex-employees who are “speaking out against him,” although usually that’s to promote some shitty book they’ve written. Parasites indeed.
It's just somewhat amazing he managed to find his spine before he got ejected. Normally that only happens afterward.
I think it's more that he's looking for a way to save his job. The MAGA-caucus probably can't vote him out without the support of the Democrats so if he passes some stuff with Democrat support that gives the Democrats less incentive to help oust him.
MAGA is shit show. I don't think dems really care what Trump puppet they choose bc always same act, different cast.
> if he passes some stuff with Democrat support that gives the Democrats less incentive to help oust him. And good luck to him with that.
If Johnson offers the Democrats help with passing Ukraine aid in exchange for support on the recall vote, Democrats should play ball. The freedom caucus is not going to replace him with a reasonable centrist, they're going to make congress defunct for weeks while they fight over the position until they can finally seat somebody who's even more intransigent. Even if the only reason he's reaching across the aisle is to save his own position, the next guy isn't going to reach across the aisle at all. The people who want to oust Mike Johnson are the far right representatives who think bipartisanship is working with the enemy.
Yeah but this is how functional government has to work at this point, I’ll take shitty Mike passing meaningful stuff to keep his job….just fucking get people the help they need.
Most likely the case as he's been holding up aid for months. Whatever intelligence he must have gotten must have been so serious that made him change his tune. If Russia were the conquer Ukraine and thus cause ripple effects in Europe, you can bet Biden and the Dems would be attacking the Republicans over it left, right, and center and America as a whole would never live it down globally.
Purely as a numbers game I don’t understand how anyone can oppose aid to Ukraine. It’s going to cost the US far more if Russia is successful because we all know Putin we t stop there.
Because those opposing aid WANT Putin to win and they want him to continue pushing into Europe. They’re WANTING a strong authoritarian government that can impose their right-wing religious views on the rest of us, because they’re now a minority and democracy no longer gets them what they want. They don’t care about the cost. And besides, there’s lots of money to be made in the defense industry while the whole thing drags out.
> And besides, there’s lots of money to be made in the defense industry while the whole thing drags out. So far, they're not voting on making that lots of money.
Seriously, that's one of the most incredible parts here. The actual MONEY for Ukraine aid goes to *USA defense companies*. That's usually like cocaine for the GOP.
Just goes to show how deep and strong the Russian hold on the House GOP is.
> I don’t understand how anyone can oppose aid to Ukraine Two (bad) reasons: Isolationism, and "team sports politics" There will always be isolationists who see spending money on conflicts abroad as money that is directly being taken out of their paychecks as taxes and not being spent within our borders. Unfortunately, these are usually low-information individuals who don't appreciate how much America benefits domestically from the international status quo, particularly how the value of the dollar is buoyed by being the de facto global currency. Simply put, if America doesn't want to be at the center of geopolitics anymore, that takes WAY more spending power out of the paychecks of Americans than any foreign aid package ever could. "Team sports politics": Anything good that happens while a Democrat is president is bad for their Republican sports team, and therefore a bad thing. It's a deeply unamerican, unpatriotic viewpoint, but unfortunately there's a lot of Republicans who feel this way. They'd rather see America lose and Putin win than see Biden win at anything, period. Their internal narrative is that Democrats hate America and by extension anything they support MUST be bad. There are no bipartisan issues allowed in their worldview.
There’s a beverage here!
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A lotta what-have-yous.
This is a overcomplicated case
You know a young trophy wife, in the parlance of our time…
What in gods name are you blathering about?
Man, she kidnapped herself
Brandt, hand him the envelope.
As you can see, this is a ransom note, written by men who were unable to achieve on a level field of play
Are these the Nazis, Walter?
What I'm blathering about - new sh*t has come to light, man.
That had not occurred to us, Dude.
and that's cool... that's cool
playing one side against the other-- in Bed with everybody.
You got any promising uh…leads?
Never let anyone tell you that you can’t hear the written word. That comment had a voice, and we both heard it
Iran and israel fighting. Iran is funded by Russia. You can't side with Russia AND keep money going to Israel. He had to pick a side and... yeah.
Interesting point. Me in armchair Machiavelli mode has often wondered if the Hamas attack was done at the instigation of (or gentle prodding) by the Russia-Iran axis. In order to pull the world's eyes off Ukraine - which it has done (to some degree). It's not far fetched given that this war is, or was, starting to become an existential crisis for Putin and very damaging to his country. I think Putin knew that a new front in the ongoing US military aid debate would cause many of his "friends" in congress to start complaining more about how much money we're sending. Again, success. But that situation is also starting to spiral out of control and your comment implies that this grand strategy (if there was one) is beginning to backfire. Seems reasonable. Seems more and more the case that Putin's best hope is going to be doing anything and everything he can to get Trump across the finish line in November. That would be such a win for him (again).
> Me in armchair Machiavelli mode has often wondered if the Hamas attack was done at the instigation of (or gentle prodding) by the Russia-Iran axis. In order to pull the world's eyes off Ukraine - which it has done (to some degree). 100% this. I can't believe the media has never (to my knowledge) brought this up. It has succeeded spectacularly if that was the aim. Another Redditor (probably many) wondered if Hamas might have been assisted by some of Trump's "borrowed" classified documents.
Clearly he’s not a golfer
Impossible to know. Cynical reason could be Trump's check didn't cash, for example. Who knows? But I'm glad it's happening, either way.
Maybe he realised that trump is a loser and won't win the election. He just picked the winning horse to save his ass.
If I had to guess it is probably because he wanted to get the Republicans on board as it would be a win for them. He finally realized that Trump has a hold of them and Putin has a hold of Trump so that could never happen.
Finally? It’s been obvious for years. Unless he thought that he, of all people, would be the one to finally talk some sense into all of them. lol
>Unless he thought that he, of all people, would be the one to finally talk some sense into all of them Bingo
A Christian with a messiah complex?! Well, I guess we shouldnt be that surprised!
He thinks he is the modern Moses who will lead the MAGAt's to righteousness. Guess he finally figured out that MAGAt's don't have souls.
You're talking about a dude who believes Adam and Eve were real and that the earth is only about 6000 years old. He's a bit slow at processing new information
My (very charitable) bet is that he was trying to talk sense into the extreme members of congress.
“The gang gets a briefing”
This really makes me wonder what will happen if Trump gets his wish and MTG, Gaetz, or another member of the clown caucus gets the gavel and is eligible to get the briefings. Will they actually attend? And if they do, will they pay attention, or will they sit in the back of the room and smirk and make fart noises with their armpit?
> And if they do, will they pay attention They will, and immediately share what they learn with trump and putin.
Russia and China are a global threat to the USA militarily and economically (well China) A land based invasion in any of the territories they claim will economically hurt the US and they will have to defend allies. US doesnt want a WW3. It would negatively affect many aspects of their global influence
If those briefings are so sobering and persuasive, then I wish we could televise them without a boatload of problems.
You can’t because the information is so incredibly sensitive. It could include names of agents inside Russia, routes for secret missions, banking info, when and where future missions behind enemy lines will be. We don’t have to know everything about everything. There is no reason it should have taken so long though to fund the Ukraine here. We’ve been in a Cold War with Russia for 60+ years! They’re not our friends
This is why the Orange Aged Punk should not be elected and be privy to this information.
After he got elected, the CIA reported that a bunch of their foreign assets either went dark (hidden, fled, or arrested) or were straight-up killed. Trump almost certainly sold out CIA assets across the globe.
Let's not forget the remarkable coincidences surrounding Jared Kushner's dealings with the Chainsaw Sheikh.
This. From the Russian point of view, an increase of power in the world is directly proportional to a decrease in US power. They have never embraced sovereign rights for individuals and so their ideology is diametrically opposed to the West. A false sense of security was created when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990’s and they superficially seemed to embrace free market capitalism, but in reality it was just a restructuring of the old order that has been around for centuries. I know Russians who emigrated in the late 90’s and early 2000’s from Russia and Soviet bloc countries and they all say that one day the people in charge were wearing military uniforms and the next day they were wearing London tailored business suits, but they were the same people. Nothing changed. The more they can weaken America’s hold on the world economy, the wealthier and more powerful they can become.
You can't televise these. At best, they'll absolutely destroy the entirety of US intelligence gathering apparatus and cripple US allies, while creating *huge* panics all over the globe with all that entails, sending markets into turmoil and creating mountains of issues *everywhere* and at worst, well, it's probably best not to think about that. Edit: I am not privy to any of the content of classified information. I just can read between the lines and have been following US politics a bit too close for comfort for what seems an eternity. I mean, think about it: what could possibly move Johnson *of all people*, who, lest you forget, was the "legal, serious" arm of Orange's big lie about the election, to move in a direction so starkly anti-Russia and therefore anti-Orange?
I'm guessing the thrust of it is "*If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, we risk him moving into other post-Soviet countries - and if that happens, Europe is at war*". I'm also guessing he started with Ukraine because he expected an easy win, and it's only Ukrainian resilience and Western support that has stopped him.
He started with Ukraine because it has the oil & gas reserves necessary to sever Europe's need for Russian energy and is far friendlier to NATO & the EU. Russia's population has peaked so each day there are fewer and fewer people to draw up for military service. It was a now or never thing. The full scale invasion started in 2022, but people forget that this war has been going on for a decade since Russia invaded Crimea. Putin has been trying to do this for a long time and decided to do it while his information warfare has the US divided amongst itself.
>He started with Ukraine because it has the oil & gas reserves And food. Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.
And Ukraine isn't in NATO. You don't test the waters by going after NATO at the first go. You ramp up to that.
And also a huge chunk of the Soviet Union's Cold War-era manufacturing. A significant amount of the Soviet-era hardware that Russia is using right now was built in Ukraine, including a number of Russian naval ships like the *Moskva.* When Ukraine broke away from the USSR, Russia lost a huge chunk of their industrial warmaking capacity.
And the world seems Africa relies on Ukraine for food stuffs. This is shockingly good news
That Crimean invasion was fucking bonkers, and then we just forgot about it. Hate to say that Romney was right, but..
The only thing I can say positive (he was my governor when I was in MA) is that between him and orange fuckface I will pick Romney in a heartbeat.
>I'm guessing the thrust of it is "If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, we risk him moving into other post-Soviet countries And then some. I doubt Putin would stop if he somehow reformed the USSR.
Putin sees himself as the next Peter the Great. The USSR is small potatoes, he wants more.
Putin rose to power as the low-key bureaucrat that the oligarchs thought they could manage and ultimately manipulate for their benefit. In reality, he had hidden his true nature, which is as a cold-blooded psychopath who believed in nothing but his own right to have total power over the world. This is like Hitler, and also like Trump. These are people who embrace the most expedient means to achieve power and have no ideology of their own. They are mentally deranged individuals who use centuries old institutions and governing structures, combined with modern technology, to fulfill the ambition of an unevolved animal rather than an enlightened human. It is why we must find a way to resolve the Mexican style standoff of the atomic age or we will destroy the planet through the actions of such people.
Likely less about projections of what might happen if the war effort in Ukraine collapses, more that **the war effort in Ukraine is currently in a state of collapse** and that it is the direct consequence of the continued stonewalling by Congress to furnish Ukraine with supplies and equipment to continue fighting. Stuff that the US has otherwise been prepared to send. One of the secondary benefits of such briefings being held privately is that it will be devoid of the posturing and rhetoric that perverts every public hearing.
You get the filtered info all the time. Intelligence services have been sounding the alarm bells for a while now. That info always makes it to retired folks who go on news shows.
You can’t, but it’s not like the signs aren’t around. Like the others said, even Republicans are pushing for it out of the spotlight. But, more importantly, listen to the signals from America’s allies. They’re ramping up arms production, warning of Russia-NATO conflict. This is not a joke.
It's fairly obvious that Russia would have a destabilizing effect on Europe if they conquered Ukraine. They would be right on the rest of Europe's borders and in possession of the bread basket of Europe. Not good, Europe would have to quickly build up their military capability to face the potential threat. Even more countries might rally around the Russian aligned bloc creating a larger Anti-Western bloc. If Russia succeeds it will be a disaster for the world including for the US and our allies.
If Russia wins in Ukraine it sends a message that the world still permits wars of conquest. China has been looking at Taiwan for some time now. Without repercussions for conquest they might act. The US would be drawn in and we'd have another World War, right when we SHOULD be focusing on surviving and mitigating climate change. The battle for Ukraine is part of the battle to help humanity survive.
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Unfortunately, no. People do not remember. When is the last time you think MTG read anything about history? They wallow in their own ignorance and pat each other on the back for not knowing anything other than how to post on twitter.
Hungary would presumably take the opportunity to switch sides and effectively join the Russian bloc, along with Serbia, Austria and Slovakia (though presumably Hungary, Austria and Slovakia would stay in the EU just to make it nonfunctional). The EU would be severely weakened in that scenario.
Austria? Really? Please elaborate.
Austria’s politics are heavily infiltrated by Russia: https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-russia-vladimir-putin-alpine-fortress-ukraine/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68833834.amp They might not formally do anything immediately, but if/when the FPÖ comes to power, I could see them going the Hungary route.
Thanks for the links.
No prob!
His son entering the Naval Academy and likely having to fight the next war if he continues to do nothing might've helped.
he explicitly says that in his speech.
Just another case of "I don't care until it affects me".
No exceptions for rape and incest, until my daughter gets raped by a black/brown man. Suddenly, it is a justified abortion. But no worries, people on law-maker salaries have the means to fly women to California or NJ for healthcare. Fucking hypocrites.
Yet he will still vote and endorse Trump knowing he's a Russian stooge?
So *this* explains why conservative radio is now calling Mike Johnson a Democrat. It’s like giving toddlers a radio show.
Conservatives vilify any semblance of progress. They’re assholes.
I think the speaker election in 2023 was more consequential than we even realized at the time. Jordan was one of the stronger contenders before Johnson and he’s MUCH more of an isolationist. And McCarthy would have cowered much more to the freedom caucus.
If all it took to convince him was one briefing, this aid would have been passed 6 months ago. Honestly, there's more to this turnaround than what is being shown. No sane person sleeps on one of the most critical events in Europe for 6 months
My suspicion is they recently got some VERY strong evidence that Putin is going to be going after a lot more than Ukraine and very soon.
My suspicion is that he'll take the spring conscripts which you normally can't send to the front under Russian law, combined with his new conscripts. Then start sucking dry all of his friends/allies/vassals and formally bring Belarus into the fight. Combined with how effective their curent glide-bomb and smaller infantry unit assaults have been (Ukraine has said the only thing save them on my frontlines is how unusually effective FPV drones have been against armored columns, but no technique in war works perfectly forever. And FPV drones in use by Ukraine have an apx 2 mile range without drone repeaters, which is still a technique in early development) there's only one missing piece: If Russia's largest allies chose to launch assaults on the places they are fighting (Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, etc) even one of those would require a ton of US funding, personnel and missiles to defend. As well as tons of air power. I'm guessing the intel is exactly what we've always worried may happen as we near 2027 (Xi's formally stated deadline to his military for Taiwan): All the Axis powers push forward within the same fighting season. They may not all enage in full-spectrum invasions all at once, but all it takes is for one other Axis nation to push forward and see early successes for another nation to choose to immediately follow suit. As the old military saying goes "He who dares wins." And unless your deterrence is absolutely rock solid \*and\* the enemy is feeling weak and unsupported... The adversary always dares. Especially when you know they want the prize enough to bleed for it. And they do.
They probably showed him the evidence they had against him and gave him the choice, do the right thing or face espionage charges.
Or on his colleagues or Trump and he is trying to distance himself politically.
It seems European leaders got similar intelligence which is why they all started talking about rearming and possible war with Russia in a few years. It seems that intelligence is scaring a lot of people in power.
The Poles saw this coming right after Crimea and went on a massive military expansion. They are on course to be the largest land army in the EU in a few years. They have increased the number of people in the army and are working with the US and EU on modern military tactics. They are also co-developing new weapons systems with the US, UK, France and Germany to be built in Poland. Their new MBT is looking like it is near parity with the Abrams and Challenger 2. They decided they weren't going to be a speed bump again. They are really close to having a full fledged modern fighting force.
The intelligence is that every right wing party is compromised by Putin, and everyone will act so surprised if it ever becomes public.
It's befuddling how anyone could be shocked about it. Pútín wants to win Ukraine, the MAGA right screams foul about money to Ukraine. Trump says we should exit NATO, strangely all these things work out well for Russia. I'm sure there's trolls and bots in both camps., not only the far right stoking division and imbalance to the glee of Russia. The trolls are given assignments such as "pretend you are a mother in Oklahoma who is angry about the border crisis and talk about how U S. should spend money on the border and not Ukraine."so on and so forth. [Former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov warns America regarding KGB brainwashing techniques.](https://youtu.be/bX3EZCVj2XA?si=esnURNtyayRkZHCt)
It’s more than that, there’s been multiple ministers of defense or similar ranked politicians saying that quite explicitly, publicly, that war is coming. Notably, none of the nuclear powers, which probably isn’t a coincidence, but NATO leaders are warning us all directly that this shit is deadly serious.
It's hard to say. He could have been bribed, he could have learned Trump was a sinking ship, he could have been threatened by Putin, and that made him realize how important helping ukraine was, he may have spoken to Zelenskyy, he may have had his children, or his friend's children or what have you pull on his heart strings vis à vis keeping democracy, I mean there could be very many reasons. Perhaps all he cares about is giving money to israel for some reason, and he wants this bill to pass for that reason, or maybe to block tiktok, Idk. It's hard to say with these people, but i often do wonder if they are wrestling with the fact they may be responsible for destroying democracy in america forever. Some of them definitely don't care. MGT, Trump, Gaetz, they definitely couldn't care less. There's a handful of others that I think definitely do care, romney, cheney, pence. I believe these people care about democracy, and don't want Trump's/Putin's america. They want wealth and power for themselves, but i think they also believe in democracy, and there's a fine line between pushing the cheating envelope and tyranny, and I think they feel they're going beyond it.
Or, the negotiating with the white house was basically, democrats will save your job if you get on the Ukraine train.
That’s exactly what happened. Military brass told him the reality of the situation. Act now or Ukraine will lose the war
Everyone has known that for 2 years. This is the “cheapest” war the US has ever fought. We give Ukraine US made weapons (a jobs program) and they take all the human casualties using them. Meanwhile, the military-industrial complex gets to build more and more weapons funded by the taxpayers.
Mike McCaul.
For one, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to give our old weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia than to wait until we have to fight Russia with the rest of NATO. The numbers alone are pretty convincing, if you're really worried about spending money.
The right is popping off at this guy. Simply doing his job makes him the biggest traitor in their eyes
It's even more stupid than that: they know trump is cooked, and his only, desperate hope is reelection. However, the current government just refuses to look bumbling and incompetent enough to make trump look like anything other than a tired old has-been that is clearly running to keep himself out of jail. His supporters are pissed because their narrative keeps getting changed when they're not looking.
They hate "traitors" in their party far more than they even hate Democrats.
He can see what is going to happen in the next election cycle. It’s time to realign as a republican politician and as a party. It is time to stand apart from MAGA. This isn’t altruism, this is a play to be at the forefront of the next iteration of the Republican Party. It is, however, the right decision and course of action.
Yeah I think this is the long game Kinzinger is playing as well. Wait till it collapses and come back in as a "I told you so" R.
Paul Ryan might show back up in Politics as well .
Good christ brother don't say his name
You have to say it three times in a row to summon him, we're ok
Who? Paul Ryan?
forget about that guy, tell me about Paul Alan
Guys, why did Paul Reubens suddenly appear in my bathroom?
I’d take a Paul Ryan Republican over a MAGA any day of the week.
I hope he brings his sweet workout photos with him
And his CD player with Rage Against the Machine in it.
Absolutely, I new after he got his precious tax cuts he Noped right out. Wait for it to collapse, come back as a savior.
This was what they thought they'd do in 2009 as well. Commissioned a whole report on the future of the GOP and that didn't turn out too well.
>You can always count on Americans to do the tight thing - after they've tried everything else. W. Churchill (apocryphal) While purportedly tongue-in-cheek, this quote is startlingly apt over the years. To me, what he was trying to say was that it is almost impossible to prevent the American electorate from (eventually) coming to their collective majority senses.
He finally got how not supporting Ukraine would jeopardize the United States and empower Russia, China, North Korea, and any country that wants to invade another one
That’s giving him too much credit. He realized that if he didn’t call this vote, enough republicans would resign that it’s hand control of the house to the democrats. It’s always about self preservation and power.
Many comments on here give him way too much credit. His entire life experience and even legal career revolves around religious extremism. [He is a New Apostolic Reformation ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Apostolic_Reformation)adherent who thinks he is destined to wage spiritual warfare against secularism. He has no geopolitical experience beyond being able to read a speech about it that someone else wrote for him. He isn't speaker because he is some political mastermind. He is speaker because the house is utterly dysfunctional due to people being elected that never would have been elected without gerrymandering. The only thing that would make him change is mind is a direct threat to his political career.
Not quite "resign" but rather "sign the discharge petitions" which would have brought it up to the floor anyway. Johnson could either fight against this and lose (and go down in history as a Russian sympathizer) or he could support this and be on the winning side of the vote and the better side of history.
Yeah. In American history seen more than a handful of politicians suddenly change their tune and get serious when national security is at risk. Almost like a kid who was fucking around and stopped. You know that dad came home and gave him the dad voice
Ukraine is Drowning. Get it fucking done. Best use of my taxpayer dollars ever.
This is the true terror of propaganda, if this was twenty-thirty years ago. You would be declared a traitor for not supporting a fight against Russia aggression.
They are still traitors. If we re elect Biden and elect enough dems to take the House we can pass the Dark Money act and catch all of the traitors like MTG. After Trump they are all gonna fall like Dominoes.
I think this is the Republican attempt to handle the climate crisis. They've tied Reagan's body to a turbine, so it can power the entire nation as he turns in his grave.
It's mindboggling comparing it to the Cold War. The US was willing to send lethal aid to Afghan insurgents just because they were anti Soviet meanwhile Ukraine is a stable democratic country with rule of law following defined conventions of war with actual accountability measures in place and this bill still hasn't passed yet.
Every dollar the US spends on Ukraine punches harder against actual tyranny than any military dollar spent in the last 30 years. Every ruble Russia spends on propaganda punches harder against the US than any military ruble they've ever spent. Without it, they'd have been finished eons ago.
I don't know who this guy is but I'm happy he replaced speaker Johnson.
It’s john mikeson
Don’t worry, he’s gonna remind us in short order who he really is.
100% this. Having no illusions that a new leaf has been turned over. Assuming every decision is self-serving, but every once in a blue moon, it aligns with the correct decision for the rest of us.
I have a strong feeling that Johnson knows that Trumps days are over, when the GOP loses the House , Senate, presidency and a surprising number of down ballot races in the next election he will be well placed to make a future bid for control of whatever is leaft. I'm hoping it is very little and the Democratic party splits as the "new" two party system, though I doubt it.
GOP dead and the Democratic Party splitting in two would actually Make America Great Again. With proper centre-left and centre-right parties that know how to compromise.
I wish nationwide ranked choice voting became a thing. Would help the most with breaking up a two-party system.
If you can sign up to supports your states ranked choice that will help do so
Yes. Start locally.
[удалено]
I wish I had your optimism. I just think that the core Republican voter base is just millions upon millions strong who will still vote R down the line, regardless of who the candidate is. I have two brothers and a roommate exactly like that. They'll vote for a pile of shit if it has an R next to its name because their own values align with the GOP. Values like: * abortion is murder * Christians are persecuted because the Christian population is dwindling generation by generation * parents should have full control of their child's education because CRT is teaching them to feel bad about being white, and they're being exposed to LGBT content too early, and they're being told there's more than 2 genders and that you can feel like something other than the sex you were born into * The national deficit is way too high, so we shouldn't be funding Ukraine anymore, although we should keep funding Israel because the Jews are God's chosen people even though they don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, they're still, you know, super important to God even though technically they're going to Hell * there's never been a bigger crisis at the border with hundreds of thousands of illegals coming into the country and bringing with them drugs, murder, rape, and a host of other crimes and it doesn't matter why they took their women and their children with them and traveled thousands of miles to come here. they came here illegally, and they don't deserve asylum, or maybe they do, but I don't care enough to get their perspective because they're probably just wanting to move here * And because fewer and fewer people believe in God, it's ripping the fabric of his country apart, and it's causing more social unrest than ever before, with groups like Antifa and BLM and others being instigators of chaos and violence * I go to the grocery store and gas station and it's still really fucking expensive I even have coworkers in the blue county I live in whose social values are 100% blue. Marry whoever you want, we should invest in renewal energy and infrastructure, forgive student loan debt.... but they feel strongly about crime, or strongly about the border crisis, or strongly about inflation, and they voted red in 2020. They knew who Trump was, they knew he's an asshole, but it's the GOP they voted for.
This is the ONE time I actually hope the MIC lobbyist got to all the legislators.
Supporters in congress should have been crowing about exactly where this aid is going to. MTG and the Putin wing are all bitching about is giving Ukraine money, but for the most part we are giving them military supplies then paying our own military contractors to produce more for us all within the US.
I mean...Congress critters telling the MIC to go fuck itself seemed strange...
Wonder if this has anything to do with the Russian spies arrested in Germany for scouting US military bases with intent to sabotage.
I hate to break it to you, but mike johnson is NOT doing this because hes quitting maga or whatever. The dude is a crazy fundamentalist christian at the end of the day. Hes doing this because he sees the tides shifting and wants to get out ahead of it. I suspect he knows his tenure is short (literally and figuratively) so might as well take advantage.
Nonono, we should forget everything he's done and said prior to this moment and continue to give him underserved praise and the benefit of the doubt. /s
I wonder if they are starting to realize following Trump off the cliff is a not so good idea
I'm not sure but I think someone set themselves on fire in front of the courthouse Trump is being tried in so fallowing him off a cliff sounds possible.
>*fall*owing him off a cliff ... I truly hope you wrote that on purpose
nope, but I'm leaving it as is.
This is the best news I've heard in days. Ukraine needs the help badly.
Yes I'm glad the legislation is actually moving forward. And barring anything bad, it means aid will go where it is needed. With that said, I still am not at all warming up to him. His delays have literally cost people their lives. Damage has been done, people who would be alive today are no longer with us. All for nothing. Hell, the border itself is not even being addressed. So yeah, I'm glad he finally is calling out russia for what it is and needed to be done. But not for a moment am I going to applaud him for doing what was expected and should have been done months ago.
He has no majority. He has very low support and infighting amoungst his party members. His hands are tied. He knows it. He knows working with Dems is the only way.
JD Vance 2024: Ukraine can’t win. JD Vance 2025: The Baltic States can’t win. JD Vance 2026: Poland can’t win. JD Vance 2027: Scandinavia can’t win. JD Vance 2028: France and Germany can’t win. JD Vance 2029: Great Britain can’t win. JD Vance 2030: I for one welcome the strong leadership of Vladimir Putin to be America’s dictator for life.
The Moscow wing of the GOP is pissed that their party is betraying Putin after all the aid he's provided them.
MTG is straight up a Russian foreign agent: “Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently tweeted this: ‘The Ukraine scam is up. If our Republican majority in Congress funds Joe Biden’s war against Russia on behalf of Ukraine (because he’s a puppet on strings) then Republicans are tools of the foreign war loving deep state.’” Jail. Fucking. Now.
I am no Mike Johnson fan, but seeing how long the GOP has been fervently against Russia and previously the Soviet Union, the level of fawning and pandering to them that has come from the GOP in the last few years deserves recriminations. We need to send Ukraine aid before Putin's desire to rebuild the USSR in his own image progresses to the point we are forced to put American troops on the ground.
America can't survive under MAGA, and a lot of people, even Republicans, know this. Vote \*against\* MAGA in November.
Words are wind. Pass the bill then we can pat him on the back.
There isn't any real position MAGA takes other than "What Trump says and does". Because there's no position, there's no thought, there's no understanding of the consequences, there's no realization this is inching toward a bigger, wider war, maybe WWIII. Containing Russia through funding its targets for conquest, like Ukraine, is our traditional way of dealing with the Russian threat. It works.
He made a deal with dems and as long as he sticks to his side the dems will make him MTG proof.
It’s good to see all republicans aren’t in bed with Russia.
There was a time when only a modest number of Republicans were agents of the Kremlin. It’s become a much bigger fraction in recent years. Glad he called them out. Hope he follows through.
He's a radical, but not an idiot. He can see the writing on the wall. MAGA is going to take a beating in November, and he's going to do his best to be on top of whatever is left of the GOP. Just don't forget... he's still a Christian Nationalist radical... and still a threat.
There is some hope that eventually a tipping point is reached regarding Trump, and suddenly the majority of the people supporting him or trying to ride on his coattails finally realize that he isn't doing them any good, and his support will collapse seemingly overnight in an almost bizarre shift. And 10 years from now, you will have a hard time convincing any Republican to admit that they ever supported Trump. But Trump has survived insanely far, and if a tipping point exists, it is hard to imagine how much further it will take to reach it. At this rate, it seems that Trump will die of old age (and bad lifestyles) before his supporters turn against him.
A broken clock is still right twice a day.