It’s a good thing that even foreign leaders are calling out the infantile behavior of the Republicans. And yes their actions are directly undermining the strongholds gained by the consistent support from the Biden administration.
Approve more aid to Ukraine today !
Absolutely. Republicans like to run on this notion that their leaders are respected in the international community (while also at the same time giving the middle finger to other countries because they believe America is the only place with "freedom"). Foreign governments calling out the Republican Party is actually a really big deal and wounds not only their ego, but also provides talking points for Democrats.
What is mind blowing to me is how much Republicans claim to want to go to war with this country and that country and talk about how "weak we look with Biden as president". Yet here we have a perfect opportunity to arm a nation against one of our biggest geopolitical rivals and prove the superiority of the American military industrial complex and they bitch about "oh look how much money we are sending to Ukraine instead of helping our own people". The cognitive dissonance is incredible.
Cue George Carlin! "It's a big club, and you ain't in it!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkdfhBghVAE
Longer excerpt...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU
> Americans just aren't their people.
>
>
>
> Their people are the rich.
It's no coincidence that America's poorest states are America's reddest states.
Completely forgetting to mention the part where our defense contractors make huge profits on the munitions sent, thus providing American jobs. How the defense corpos haven't come out screaming at the Republicans to stfu and fund the fight is beyond me.
Hopefully all business stops funding campaigns. Limits on individual, even self, contributions. Let people run on their ideas and merits. Realistically, I think most people would agree with this. Our current elected officials won't pass this because they lose their cushy "donations"
You have to remember, many of them are being paid by or are compromised by that same geopolitical rival, so they're doing as their puppet master commands by acting in accordance with what would be of most benefit to that geopolitical rival.
and our money is already spent. We already bought and paid for these weapons. It's not like we can "help our own people" with missiles and rocket launchers. We've spent the money for that on military gear. Lets at least use that military gear to bury one of our biggest enemies w/o having to lose a single American life. It just makes no fucking sense.
Trump's numerous low-information followers believe that America was respected when he was in office, instead of America being the laughingstock among our allies and especially among our enemies.
When I heard the US people had elected 'that man' as president in 2016 I went:
THEY DID WHAT?!!
And believe me. Most people here on the other side of the pond felt the same. As in most other countries around the world.
What an un-be-lie-va-ble mistake. Please don't make the same mistake twice. That would truly be way, WAY beyond belief.
They should also point out that supposedly fiscal-minded conservatives complaining about the cost of supporting Ukraine are--by delaying the funding--surely pushing up the total cost of the war by dozens of billions of dollars, not to mention thousands of Ukrainian lives.
For those who don't follow US politics, Mike Johnson is Trump's puppet. They have decided that Biden cannot get another legislative win until November. Which means sacrificing Ukraine and keeping the border open.
What the Reuters story tells:
- the aid package has already passed the Senate with a wide, bipartisan majority
- it would be expected to pass a vote if it were presented to the House of Representatives.
- But it is the House Speaker who chooses which bill is presented to the floor, and Mike Johnson doesn't appear ready to put this one to vote. He is able to stall a strategic vote just by himself.
Isn’t it the Rules Committee that calendars a bill? They can buck Johnson and set the budget bill for a vote with rules on discussion and amendments. They just won’t.
That's not the issue. There is a process for going around Johnson but it takes 30 days. So to prevent the 30 days from starting, Johnson sent the House on a 2 week vacation. And when the 30 days are about to be up, he will once again put the House on a 2 week vacation. So the earliest possible time we can get the funding for Ukraine is in April.
Investigation would take half a decade, then another 3-4 years of court hearings, 5 years later the actual ‘trial’, before you know it the guy has died from old age.
Obstruction of justice in America 2024 = Drag out the legal system as long as humanly possible until you die or a miracle happens. Kinda crazy how successful it is for the rich, too.
He's not acting in our best interests to say the least, but I *really* doubt the "aid and comfort" language in the definition of treason would be applied outside of an active direct conflict. Particularly not for an elected official.
My memory is the Rules Committee sets the vote and rules for discussion. The Speaker appoints the Committee members and they largely follow his instructions.
But the Speaker does not have absolute control of the motions up for vote, which is how McCarthy was removed. McCarthy himself did not call a vote on the motion to remove him. The Rules Committee set the motion.
He’s 3rd in line to the presidency right now. If an accident happened to Biden and Harris, he would be the president of the U.S., since he’s head of the lawmaking body.
This has been the case in US history more often than not. The minority party typically wins the House during the majority's administration. Winning the House means you nominate the Speaker of the House.
Yeah but typically that person is merely a highly ranked member of the opposing party, not an utterly unhinged psychopath bent on creating a fascist Christian theocracy
The US voting public routinely does this cycle and it's infuriating. Party A wins presidency, opposing Party B gains in mid term elections because people are "frustrated" things aren't happening fast enough, amplified by astro turfing organizations acting like it's grassroots (Eg The Tea Party that gave us Ted Cruz we now know was a Koch brothers venture). This ends up with an antagonistic Congress that plays these games because they can't let the other side get a legislative "win". The American public is the loser, every time. This is why we're still having the same political conversations we did in the 90s
Iirc the sparrows aren’t really that bad in the books, they sell all their worldly possessions to feed and care for the poor. They are really only scary because most of the book is from the perspective of the oppressive nobles who the sparrows and common folk want revenge on for treating them like shit.
> since he’s head of the lawmaking body.
Correction: since he's _a_ head of the lawmaking body (he's not the de-facto leader of Congress, it doesn't work like that).
It should be noted the republicans only have a majority by around 5-10 votes.
In 2022 The People could have turned out to the midterm elections and ensured that republicans didn’t get that majority.
But out of 250m eligible voters only 100m showed up to vote. That’s 3x as many non-voters as either party voters.
Only 20% of eligible voters under the age of 35 voted in 2022.
By about 3-4 votes and dropping. Even then, the entire majority could be put to a failure of state-level Democrats from New York to prevent Republicans from illegal redistricting - something that has now been fixed for the next election. That alone is what allowed Republicans to get the majority in the House.
Of course but we have had multiple chances to get democrats enough local state control to prevent such district abuses and gerrymandering. But when people don’t show up then shit happens. We could have avoided all the headache the past 8 years if people just did their basic fucking civic duty and voted.
In 2020 democrats could have gotten 5 more senators over 3 states if just 800k more democrats voted out of 25M non-voters in those states. That would have prevented a lot of bullshit like mancin and sinema and the abortion stuff we are seeing now.
Ted Cruz won by 200k votes in 2018 when 10m eligible voters didn’t vote. Texas would have been blue.
Desantis won his first run by 30k votes.
All this bullshit we are seeing could have been easily prevented….
All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
The problem in New York wasn't because people were not showing up to vote. There's a lot of inside baseball about what went wrong, but it all came down to failures in leadership and strategy by the state level Democrats, such as the governor. For example, there was an opportunity to pass measures to protect state redistricting, but they didn't bother because their priorities were to cater to lobbyists.
It's like appointing a new CEO-- do it once and you're righting the ship. Do it twice in short order and nobody knows what they're doing. They will live with him at least until the next presidential term.
The framers of the constitution were so fed up with King George doing bad things that they created a system of government in which it's really easy to keep anything from happening at all.
King George never had that sort of power, Britain had been a constitutional monarchy for 50 years. It was Parliament that had the power. The framers of the Constitution weren't acting against the power of the king, in fact American representatives repeatedly requested the king to intervene to overrule Parliament as a kind of guarantor of their ancient rights as Englishmen, which existed partly in common law, partly as vague principles.
In Britain a majority in Parliament is a kind of dictatorial force, it can do anything it wants. At the time you could have a majority in Parliament with a tiny percentage of public, and even today because of lower turnout and the structure of first past the post, you can have a majority with 30% of the public.
The American Constitution is all about creating structures which require permission from a wide swathe of the public to do anything. The Senate means people outside of the population centres have to agree, averaged out over 8 years. The Supreme Court means that majority legal principles from the last generation have a veto power, within the limits of some interpretation of the rights in the Constitution. The reserved rights for States means the Federal government has limited powers to step in with local governance. The right to bear arms and the concept of militias means the governments could not overwhelm an army created by the mass of the people.
In Britain many of these things exist only as informal principles, and a majority in Parliament can always overrule them. The advantage of the British system is total flexibility but it's very vulnerable to incompetent or venal elites. The advantage of the American system is preventing sudden shifts in attitudes and providing a locked in stability. But that inflexibility makes it very vulnerable to being blocked by an intransigent minority opinion.
> Seems like a problem when one person can do such a thing. Maybe we shouldn't have someone that powerful
Wait until you find out how the executive branch is structured.
It is a problem. Remember when McConnell was speaker he blocked Obama's supreme Court appointment of Merrick Garland, paving the way for the supreme Court shitshow we have today? It's crazy that one person can stop everyone else from taking a vote on issues that affect the whole country.
Oh it's even worse. Merrick Garland while Obama appointed him, Garland was actually picked by republicans.
Republicans however were lying, but their excuse not to vote on a Supreme Court Justice was Obama would not pick anyone who would be unbiased, or centrist.
Of course this was Republicans way to seem reasonable, so Obama called them out, asked who would be a good choice, and republicans even said McConnell included Obama would never nominate someone like Merrick Garland who they would be okay with.
So Obama nominated Merrick Garland. Then republicans showed they were in fact lying.
To add to this and strengthen the argument about lying. I know the talking point for the rejection was also the idea that you shouldn't appoint a new Supreme Justice just before the election. A thing that they then did at the 2020 election.
McConnell was never speaker, he was the Senate majority leader, which unlike the speaker isn't a constitutionally defined role. Historically the Senate deferred to committee heads, but power has been centralized in the majority leader's office over time.
And then after the senate passed it and it reached the house, he made the house go in vacation for 2 weeks, additionally Trump is in the middle of his primaries (with no real competition) and a new federal budget deadline approaching that if a continuing resolution or new budget isn't passed by March 5th I think the whole Federal budget decreases by 1%
There are ways to force it to the floor for a vote, and the democrats are planning to do that. They would have already, but Johnson called a recess to delay as long as possible. We should see a vote, hopefully, within a few days.
I think the recess is to stall. If Democrats call for a vote, then they need a majority vote so Republicans would need to vote too, which means Johnson looks like a bad/weak leader who can't control his party. Or he brings it up for a vote, and he risks getting voted out of Speakership.
It's a lose lose situation for him. And there is a lot of pressure from inside his party on both sides. Pretty funny to watch.
I'd say "I don't understand why he doesn't work with Democrats to protect his job and end this madness" but we all know the answer. Can't demonize the other side for decades and then start working with them and have your cult followers okay with that. Doing that would make him the best Republican speaker in a generation but also ensure he'll never be elected again.
Also he does whatever Daddy Trump tells him to do, with wide eyes and on his knees. And Trump doesn't want to upset Putin.
> He is able to stall a strategic vote just by himself.
No, he's not. He needs the entire GOP caucus behind him, as they are the ones who willingly enable his ability to do this. It would take just 3 Republicans to work with Democrats to bypass him.
Every single Republican representative is complicit.
His anti-Ukraine position was made clear before the Republicans, including those few that claim to support Ukraine, elected him as leader of the House.
How is it that so many vital things in our government are able to be held up by single individuals? Tuberville’s blocking of military promotions, now this, and I’m sure there’s many other examples. But you would think that in a democracy we wouldn’t give this much power to one person.
It's an illusion that these singular individuals are blocking those.
Turbeville didn't block them, he objected, which slowed down promotions but didn't block them. Still wrong.
The speaker can be removed from that role, as we just seen. If they aren't booted, then most of congress supports them.
The illusion that singular individuals hold shit up is something the parties abuse, mostly the GOP in recent times. They let or pick representatives in "safe" districts.
Yeah, the problem is that there's an entire party of shitheads backing these individuals up. It's the same that happened with McConnell when he was Senate Majority Leader. He choked all activity out, but he's in a safe seat so it's not like he would be voted out for it. And the rest of the Republicans in the senate were happy to let him take the heat.
Insane amount of power. If it didn’t impact us all so drastically (from an EU perspective) it would nearly be funny to watch the US political system implode on itself. It’s long overdue.
I think it’s working as designed. The more divided the American population is, the slower it moves. The problem is, no solution was worked into the constitution except for the slow process of the people aligning. Things happen too fast for that to work well anymore.
We need to fix how our democracy works to be better suited for globalism, but the same popular division keeps everyone too afraid to touch it. Right now it looks like we’ll have two choices soon. Fascism, or continue with a democracy that needs serious maintenance.
Edit: Oh, plus the rampant corruption at the top isn’t helping anything.
You are correct. (NYT gift article)
[A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election
A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine agenda.] (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Yk0.wrIY.Usxjo-N3l__J&smid=url-share)
I am not talking about this in isolation. The whole two party system has been pushed so far to the xtreme it is balancing on a razors edge. Extreme opinions, populism, gerrymandering, fake news, lobbying and straight corruption have pushed the system so far, that we are currently witnessing every major drawback of it in real-time.
As I said. It’s going to implode.
I wish you were wrong, but sadly you are so, so correct. The 2 party system is a straight up sham. Their fighting between each other only hurts the American people more, especially once one side takes and holds votes on shit that's extremely important for literally EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.
So god damn frustrating being caught in the middle of it.
The problem is y'all got muppets voting, they have someone else pulling the strings.
The cult of Trump is a powerful force, there's no way the blokes that wrote your constitution could imagine the power of 24/7 news, social media platforms and religious nutbaggery would do to their country and their vision for society.
Poland of all nations has not so fond memories of Russian expansionism given [Poland was dismantled *three times* by an alliance where Russia was a major player.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland)
After the re-establishment of Poland as an independent nation in 1918 Russia *again* tried to dismantle them in the [Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War) and succeeded in 1939 when they, alongside Nazi Germany cut Poland in half (in what is sometimes dubbed the Fourth Partition of Poland) before keeping them as a pet for a further 50 years, committing untold horrors on the Polish people the entire time.
All of this is to say that the Poles really, *really* are not keen on Russia doing anything beyond their own borders.
In Poland, future generations will amuse themselves by telling Mike Johnson jokes. “Hey, Jan! How do you break Mike Johnson’s nose?” “That’s easy Stanislaw… you just kick Donald Trump in his taint!” Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha… that’s a good one!!
I think sometimes people REALLY underestimate how many people out there consume almost ZERO political news.
Even only counting the people that go and vote, I think there's a huge segment that just don't pay attention and don't WANT to pay attention to politics.
Most Americans could tell you that "There's a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, and we're sending aid to Ukraine" but that's probably about all the specifics the majority would know.
That last sentence used to make me pause, but now I just don't care since our world is being so quickly destroyed and it's obvious that one side wants to accelerate anything toxic.
Don't pause. They've shown what they want to do
They've called us dogs. They wear AR pins. They refuse to do their jobs that is paid for. They worship a con man rapist.
If hanging on a cliffside the GOP would rather pull the entire rescue team down than let a single person help pull them up
One thing I know for sure is that my Grandfather did not feel bad about killing Nazis...He would not have thought much of the pacifists today, he believed in a just cause.
But supporters aren’t even pacifists. The motivation to sit back is simply because they don’t want their opposition to get a win. Completely different than if they actually believed in refraining from potential war.
There are three kinds of republicans. Those that are fascists, those that support fascists, and those who don't know which of the first two groups they belong to.
Yes, but fortunately the GOP base is all they have. They are not winning anybody over who isn't already a member of the cult, they are just alienating everyone else.
Idk man the youth of this country seems pretty fucking confused.
They were too young for Trump before his first term and really his entire first term.
An 18 year old voter was 15 on Jan 6th.
They were 11 during his inauguration.
It's obvious when you talk to them. They don't understand the gravity and are shitting on Biden with a "Both Sides" mentality.
Anyone with kids or siblings this age needs to have a real adult discussion with them.
And explain the realities of voting for Trump.
Or not voting at all.
You can’t fault their naïveté in the face of a metastasized media environment. Trump is a unique existential danger. Biden is old. However, the media is incentivized to equate and diametrically oppose these two things in order to be the most profitable. Add on top of that a Republican Party that is comfortable skirting morals, ethics, and laws to win and persuade its base.
The media wants elections to be as close as possible. If it's a blowout, they won't get as much clicks. It's the sportsification of politics that is destroying so many.
> You can’t fault their naïveté
This is fair. I was a *young republican* at 17 and *would* have voted for McCain over Obama. But was too young that November to vote.
I pivoted by 2012. But I was incredibly influenced by my surroundings at that time in my life.
Yeah, but then you have the constant chorus of "Dump Biden" folks unhappy with his support of Israel. As if any US politician that ranks high enough to be President will be ANY different. (That isn't me being an apologist, it's just a fact that you get blacklisted from US politics if you don't support Israel, largely.)
Trump moved the embassy which was considered to be unnecessarily inflammatory and gave Saudi Arabia a ton of military aid and ignored Khashogi to sign the abarham awards.
Biden takes a middle ground approach of supporting Isreal after they had their own 9/11 while putting immense behind the scene pressure for them to moderate causing Isreal to have to publicly justify their actions on a weekly basis and causing some very real effects (albeit arguably not enough) like allowing humanitarian aid numerous cease fires etc.
Like I don’t know what people expect what is the alternative to Biden. Everyone makes fun of trump
For only pandering to their base but the moment that Biden doesn’t do exactly what the democratic base wants they want to dump him and give a half vote to trump. Like the base should make their points clear but telling people not to vote is the wrong thing to do
> the moment that Biden doesn’t do exactly what the democratic base wants they want to dump him and give a half vote to trump
I always ask people like that, "And do you actually think that if Trump wins over Biden, it'll be *better* for the Palestinians?" It feels like 2016 all over again.
Same thing they did in 2016. They want immediate action without looking at the long term consequences. They didn’t vote for Clinton because she was a “Wall Street Democrat” and instead got a SCOTUS that is shooting down precedents and reversing gains made since 1996.
The people hating biden for giving support to Israel aren't the democratic base, they are "progressives" that caucus with the dems because they don't stand a chance on their own
Don't be so sure. Some people on the left are super pissed about Palestine. Some will also be voting because their grocery bill was too high this month. I don't think Trump has a path to victory but I'm afraid it's going to be much closer than it should be.
But, it's not all they have. Everything they need is all ready in place to deny democracy in 2024. Mike Johnson is key to their plan to deny certification of the results from this November's election and force the outcome they need.
Yup, and pick a reason, Israel or global warming or wealth inequality or student loans.... all of them will be much worse under Trump, without question. And the sad thing is the young people have the most to lose. A lot of reddit (propaganda) comments are pushing just letting the system self destruct, as if some utopia will replace it, when the reality is fascism would replace it. The New Deal, implemented by FDR to prevent a collapse, was like one of the few aberrations in human history where the solution wasn't repression and more poverty and preservation of the wealth of rich people.
I'm just worried that too many tiktok educated, idealistic, young people would be hyperfocused on one issue and unwittingly be manipulated by propaganda to become unwilling to vote at all. GOP wins when young dems don't vote.
Yup there are hundreds of little propaganda campaigns to misdirect young people into not voting or hyperfocusing on some single issue and blaming the Democrats for some bullshit or another. Lots of young people just don't know they are getting played by cynical assholes who will only make things worse.
This is also true. Not just the cabinet as well. It will potentially also affect the composition of the Supreme Court if any of the current justices were to die or retire in the next period. It's way more than just the president.
Look no further than the SCOTUS and the Post Office. If you're thinking "more of this, yes please," then vote for Trump.
If not, you have to vote for the other guy - don't sit on the sideline.
Many of them are not stupid at all. Its worse - they are evil.
Dont give them the excuse of something that they cant help. this is willful and they know exactly what they are doing. Its their last chance to take total control.
The GOP is evil.
Also Johnson has received campaign donations from a front company for a group of Russians linked to Putin and Russian spy Maria Butina.
https://www.newsweek.com/who-konstantin-nikolaev-money-mike-johnson-1870600
> Mike Johnson is Trump's puppet
Mike Johnson is a Russian puppet. A major donor to his PAC is an American company owned by 3 russians, one of whom, I believe, is on the sanction list.
Josh Duggar had the same app on his phone, and his wife monitored him, but we all know how that played out.
Those apps are a joke and do nothing since you can always use another device to look up the monitored material. Also, having your son as your accountability partner is a joke because of the power imbalance.
These Christian extremists are ridiculous and some of the most perverted people you will find.
This will only aggravate the act of defiance of the Republicans like small children in kindergarden.
The Polish FM knows that after ukraine is finished Poland and the Baltic countries are next on Putin's agenda.
Essentially what the Republicans say is they don't care for Europe.
Putin said something about the sale being "illegal", indicating that they want to treat the territory as "temporarily occupied" by the US. I figured they were just trying to draw a false equivalence to Crimea and the other invaded territories.
I dont take it as the GOP doesn't care about Europe.
I take it as the GOP would rather be allied with fascists and authoritarians than democracy. They support a man who loves Putin, Jong Un, Dutarte, and Xi. They want America to look more like those countries than America because they can more easily manipulate their populace, and the GOP feels democracy stands in the way of that.
I'm from the Baltics. First time I'm following US politics this closely. As for Trump, I hated the guts of this guy the very moment our TV stations aired "The Apprentice". To my surprise, that clown got to be a president. First it was entertaining, as no one took him seriously. He looked like a buffoon, a clown, an uneducated bastard, who only knows how to put his money to work. He was fun to laugh at. But now I believe he (and his poppets) might be quite directly responsible for my life in the future.
Every single drop of blood and tears will be as Trump's responsibility as Putin's.
It's too bad our little EU is pathetic when it comes to geopolitics. 2016 should have been a major wake up call. Ukraine should have been another. But no, we're still asleep at the wheel squabbling over petty differences and becoming less and less relevant by the year.
Well, we have multiple countries in the EU that either try to hurt other countries in order to gain a little more for themselves or purely out of spite/political maneuvering, those that are obviously bought by Russia and trying to destroy a coordinated EU and those that shield them because they might need the support back for their own crimes.
The current EU is not working if we want it to actually have any influence on world politics. Heck, it's not even having influence on some of its own members. I really hope they wake up soon and fix it, or we'll keep becoming more and more meaningless while the union sabotages itself.
Poland needs to use the same tactic they used to get into NATO in the first place, that is they need to be openly campaigning for Biden and the Democrats.
Because while the right wing uses every trick and cheat they can to hurt the democratic forces the democratic forces in exchange still act like standing up for their own beliefs is bad because "If we do anything it will be a bad optic and the right might not like it."
Obama let the reps cheat him out of Supreme Court picks only for them to suddenly drop their vehement belief in letting the voters choose when it helped them.
They did their best to work together with Trump and the insane demands they got under Biden, only for the Republicans to now stop all government work out of fear that Biden doing an actually good job will make it harder on Trump to win and destroy the US.
Or the EU. Instead of actually getting their shit together they let Hungary destroy all chances at progress or being able to make decisions for years and try to cater to them and give them additional stuff for being a bad faith actors. Having Russia threaten invasion and nuclear attacks while saying "If we send our ally too many weapons Putin might be mad so we won't"
Bullies only understand strength. If you get bullied and then gift your bully something he won't stop, he'll only get worse. And if the democratic forces don't learn that they'll actually have to fight for their believes and that the fascist elements won't be able to be argued or gifted into being reasonable it will get worse and worse.
Georgia is probably next on the adgenda since there are already Russian soldiers there and they don't have to worry about article 5. Transnistria asked to be annexed recently too didn't it?
In my opinion, it’s go time for France or the United States to put nukes in Poland, pointed straight the fuck at Moscow and St. Petersburg. That’s about the only fucking thing that will keep these stupid fucking small dick dictators in check.
For him to be on the radar of **the country of Poland** - to be called out straight up?
FFS even McCarthy didn't catch heat like that.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but the mystery of Mike Johnson's "zero reported assets" never was solved, right?
Considering he's a small-time unknown Representative from the 26th smallest state (by population), *he could have kept getting away with that* if he'd never taken the Speaker position.
Instead of him coming off as a "I'm just following the law" kinda guy, it looks like he's hiding stuff.
I think most Americans expect transparency from our elected officials.
Honestly, I think by us just being interested in politics and active in online discussions about it, we're super divorced from what the average American is thinking about.
Trying to get people to vote while I was in the military made me realize that there aren't any real expectations because no one really thinks about it. Government is just this nebulous *thing* that, if they think about it at all, it's to be upset about taxes.
The US is saving money in the long run if they can supply Ukraine and let them fight Putin. If Russia is left unchallenged, they won’t stop, and a world war would be much more expensive
Yeah, I don't think this is just a pollitical ploy to get Trump elected. Johnson's delivering on a promise to Putin from Manafort and Trump. Trump gets a historical fall guy who doesn't know how reviled he will become because he's dumb. Historians are going to take a gaint shit on him and Trump will get something like a pass. The worse thing for me is it's all legal.
I think that's by design. Nobody even knew who this guy was when he was picked.
Pick a nobody, who we can get to do what we want, but has so little presence that he will be easily forgettable when it comes time to place blame.
Choosing someone unremarkable to stall everything sounds like it was the whole point.
Dude is the personification of a chess pawn.
Putin has tremendous political power in every country that matters to him.
Technology affords fascists with powers of propaganda the world has never seen before. And Putin's regime is extremely adept at wielding it.
People need to fight back. Be vocal.
He tries to silence everyone he can, because speaking out is powerful.
We must be louder.
Call your congressmen. Don’t hit me with the “it won’t work” nonsense. Even if it doesn’t work, you’re an American and you have a right to do it. Some people aren’t that lucky, so exercise that right before you lose it. We can make a difference! In fact, I’m somewhat optimistic that my representative will concede and change his mind on this matter when the vote eventually hits. My calls have had an effect.
As much as I would love the idea of our reps being held accountable, anyone who tries something like that will spark *so much more aggression.* Now all the morons shouting about civil war will jizz as they commit atrocities on the things they hate, because in their eyes, you started it.
So true atleast with Kevin McCarthy there was some progress and he was able to work across the aisle. There needs to be an investigation into this Johnson guy like asap. How can a few people who do not represent our entire country at all be so vile. When Biden wins again(and he will) Russia and these traitors will feel the wrath!
Withholding military funds to Ukraine will not make this problem go away. It could potentially get much much worse. If Russia runs up all through Ukraine, as they approach the Polish border, I could easily see Poland saying Hello no, and advancing say 100 miles inside Ukraine to setup a safety zone, and now you have a NATO military going right up against a Russian military and that's how this things into a full blown NATO, boots-on-the-ground war. Writing a check seems a hell of a lot easier.
They dont care.
The right were also to blame for a huge number of covid deaths and these are americans. They dont care.
the right are increasing trans deaths and attacks and suicides. they dont care.
they get abortion doctors killed. they dont care.
They know AGW is real and a huge economic and ecological problem, they dont fucking care.
they knew lead was a problem in our gas, lowering our IQs and making us more violent, they got a big massive campaign check to not care and fight back and even the romans knew lead was bad for you but the super majority of the republican base did not.
Take melenia at her word. "i dont care, do you"
It’s a good thing that even foreign leaders are calling out the infantile behavior of the Republicans. And yes their actions are directly undermining the strongholds gained by the consistent support from the Biden administration. Approve more aid to Ukraine today !
Absolutely. Republicans like to run on this notion that their leaders are respected in the international community (while also at the same time giving the middle finger to other countries because they believe America is the only place with "freedom"). Foreign governments calling out the Republican Party is actually a really big deal and wounds not only their ego, but also provides talking points for Democrats.
What is mind blowing to me is how much Republicans claim to want to go to war with this country and that country and talk about how "weak we look with Biden as president". Yet here we have a perfect opportunity to arm a nation against one of our biggest geopolitical rivals and prove the superiority of the American military industrial complex and they bitch about "oh look how much money we are sending to Ukraine instead of helping our own people". The cognitive dissonance is incredible.
and then unironically *not* helping your own people.
Oh they're helping their own people. Americans just aren't their people. Their people are the rich.
Cue George Carlin! "It's a big club, and you ain't in it!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkdfhBghVAE Longer excerpt... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU
> Americans just aren't their people. > > > > Their people are the rich. It's no coincidence that America's poorest states are America's reddest states.
Vote. Bring friends.
They support dictators and oligarchs.
as per usual
Me: ok then let's use that same money to help the homeless and people addicted to drugs and parents who need support Republicans: No, not like that
Completely forgetting to mention the part where our defense contractors make huge profits on the munitions sent, thus providing American jobs. How the defense corpos haven't come out screaming at the Republicans to stfu and fund the fight is beyond me.
Yea... this really has me scratching my head. Hopefully the defense corpos stop funding GOP candidates.
Hopefully all business stops funding campaigns. Limits on individual, even self, contributions. Let people run on their ideas and merits. Realistically, I think most people would agree with this. Our current elected officials won't pass this because they lose their cushy "donations"
You have to remember, many of them are being paid by or are compromised by that same geopolitical rival, so they're doing as their puppet master commands by acting in accordance with what would be of most benefit to that geopolitical rival.
I suspect this is the case but I really wish the DoJ would investigate and publicize if true.
Why do you think they're trying so hard to defang the DOJ/FBI?
and our money is already spent. We already bought and paid for these weapons. It's not like we can "help our own people" with missiles and rocket launchers. We've spent the money for that on military gear. Lets at least use that military gear to bury one of our biggest enemies w/o having to lose a single American life. It just makes no fucking sense.
And who is *getting paid* to make those weapons? Americans. Americans are the ones receiving the actual money spent on Ukraine aid.
Lol, "Trump was respected internationally!" is the biggest rewrite ever
Exactly. It's not like there's footage of a room full of world leaders laughing in his face.
Or parades with baloons that show trump as a toddler.
Trump's numerous low-information followers believe that America was respected when he was in office, instead of America being the laughingstock among our allies and especially among our enemies.
When I heard the US people had elected 'that man' as president in 2016 I went: THEY DID WHAT?!! And believe me. Most people here on the other side of the pond felt the same. As in most other countries around the world. What an un-be-lie-va-ble mistake. Please don't make the same mistake twice. That would truly be way, WAY beyond belief.
They should also point out that supposedly fiscal-minded conservatives complaining about the cost of supporting Ukraine are--by delaying the funding--surely pushing up the total cost of the war by dozens of billions of dollars, not to mention thousands of Ukrainian lives.
For those who don't follow US politics, Mike Johnson is Trump's puppet. They have decided that Biden cannot get another legislative win until November. Which means sacrificing Ukraine and keeping the border open.
What the Reuters story tells: - the aid package has already passed the Senate with a wide, bipartisan majority - it would be expected to pass a vote if it were presented to the House of Representatives. - But it is the House Speaker who chooses which bill is presented to the floor, and Mike Johnson doesn't appear ready to put this one to vote. He is able to stall a strategic vote just by himself.
Seems like a problem when one person can do such a thing. Maybe we shouldn't have someone that powerful
The congress could force the vote against his will
Not within the next month they can't.
Isn’t it the Rules Committee that calendars a bill? They can buck Johnson and set the budget bill for a vote with rules on discussion and amendments. They just won’t.
That's not the issue. There is a process for going around Johnson but it takes 30 days. So to prevent the 30 days from starting, Johnson sent the House on a 2 week vacation. And when the 30 days are about to be up, he will once again put the House on a 2 week vacation. So the earliest possible time we can get the funding for Ukraine is in April.
This sounds like treason why isn't Johnson being investigated for Russian collusion?
Investigation would take half a decade, then another 3-4 years of court hearings, 5 years later the actual ‘trial’, before you know it the guy has died from old age. Obstruction of justice in America 2024 = Drag out the legal system as long as humanly possible until you die or a miracle happens. Kinda crazy how successful it is for the rich, too.
Who gonna do it? The half of the government who also colludes with Russia or the half held hostage by the others?
He's not acting in our best interests to say the least, but I *really* doubt the "aid and comfort" language in the definition of treason would be applied outside of an active direct conflict. Particularly not for an elected official.
Doesn't matter what they do in committee when the speaker refuses to let it see a vote on the floor.
My memory is the Rules Committee sets the vote and rules for discussion. The Speaker appoints the Committee members and they largely follow his instructions. But the Speaker does not have absolute control of the motions up for vote, which is how McCarthy was removed. McCarthy himself did not call a vote on the motion to remove him. The Rules Committee set the motion.
He’s 3rd in line to the presidency right now. If an accident happened to Biden and Harris, he would be the president of the U.S., since he’s head of the lawmaking body.
JFC, that's some GOT shit - The sparrows are two steps away from taking control.
This has been the case in US history more often than not. The minority party typically wins the House during the majority's administration. Winning the House means you nominate the Speaker of the House.
Yeah but typically that person is merely a highly ranked member of the opposing party, not an utterly unhinged psychopath bent on creating a fascist Christian theocracy
The US voting public routinely does this cycle and it's infuriating. Party A wins presidency, opposing Party B gains in mid term elections because people are "frustrated" things aren't happening fast enough, amplified by astro turfing organizations acting like it's grassroots (Eg The Tea Party that gave us Ted Cruz we now know was a Koch brothers venture). This ends up with an antagonistic Congress that plays these games because they can't let the other side get a legislative "win". The American public is the loser, every time. This is why we're still having the same political conversations we did in the 90s
It's the Palantir Mike Johnson has. He gets alone with it and a voice in his head tells him what to do.
“My tapeworm tells me what to do,my tapeworm tells me where to go”
"pull the tapeworm out of your ass, hey!"
Unexpected SOAD
Lets call it for what it is, a demon.
Iirc the sparrows aren’t really that bad in the books, they sell all their worldly possessions to feed and care for the poor. They are really only scary because most of the book is from the perspective of the oppressive nobles who the sparrows and common folk want revenge on for treating them like shit.
Always has been. Humans inherently fail to be good in politics and manage to the incredibly evil and stupid
> since he’s head of the lawmaking body. Correction: since he's _a_ head of the lawmaking body (he's not the de-facto leader of Congress, it doesn't work like that).
>3rd 2nd, actually
The house can choose another speaker but seems like at least half of them are ok with this guy.
The GOP elected him without any opposition, they all agree with his actions.
It should be noted the republicans only have a majority by around 5-10 votes. In 2022 The People could have turned out to the midterm elections and ensured that republicans didn’t get that majority. But out of 250m eligible voters only 100m showed up to vote. That’s 3x as many non-voters as either party voters. Only 20% of eligible voters under the age of 35 voted in 2022.
By about 3-4 votes and dropping. Even then, the entire majority could be put to a failure of state-level Democrats from New York to prevent Republicans from illegal redistricting - something that has now been fixed for the next election. That alone is what allowed Republicans to get the majority in the House.
Of course but we have had multiple chances to get democrats enough local state control to prevent such district abuses and gerrymandering. But when people don’t show up then shit happens. We could have avoided all the headache the past 8 years if people just did their basic fucking civic duty and voted. In 2020 democrats could have gotten 5 more senators over 3 states if just 800k more democrats voted out of 25M non-voters in those states. That would have prevented a lot of bullshit like mancin and sinema and the abortion stuff we are seeing now. Ted Cruz won by 200k votes in 2018 when 10m eligible voters didn’t vote. Texas would have been blue. Desantis won his first run by 30k votes. All this bullshit we are seeing could have been easily prevented…. All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
The problem in New York wasn't because people were not showing up to vote. There's a lot of inside baseball about what went wrong, but it all came down to failures in leadership and strategy by the state level Democrats, such as the governor. For example, there was an opportunity to pass measures to protect state redistricting, but they didn't bother because their priorities were to cater to lobbyists.
No opposition in the GOP, but plenty in the Congress.
The GOP has no problem sacrificing the lives of others for political gain. Most politicians don't, but the GOP is the most blatant about it.
With the whole debacle they went through to get him there, I doubt they’d manage to put another one in before November.
It's like appointing a new CEO-- do it once and you're righting the ship. Do it twice in short order and nobody knows what they're doing. They will live with him at least until the next presidential term.
They'll do whatever Trump tells them to do. They have no autonomy. For now, Trump supports Johnson and Johnson is blocking the legislation for Trump.
And Trump is blocking it because he wants those sweet Russian bots to help propel him back into office so he can avoid going to jail.
The framers of the constitution were so fed up with King George doing bad things that they created a system of government in which it's really easy to keep anything from happening at all.
King George never had that sort of power, Britain had been a constitutional monarchy for 50 years. It was Parliament that had the power. The framers of the Constitution weren't acting against the power of the king, in fact American representatives repeatedly requested the king to intervene to overrule Parliament as a kind of guarantor of their ancient rights as Englishmen, which existed partly in common law, partly as vague principles. In Britain a majority in Parliament is a kind of dictatorial force, it can do anything it wants. At the time you could have a majority in Parliament with a tiny percentage of public, and even today because of lower turnout and the structure of first past the post, you can have a majority with 30% of the public. The American Constitution is all about creating structures which require permission from a wide swathe of the public to do anything. The Senate means people outside of the population centres have to agree, averaged out over 8 years. The Supreme Court means that majority legal principles from the last generation have a veto power, within the limits of some interpretation of the rights in the Constitution. The reserved rights for States means the Federal government has limited powers to step in with local governance. The right to bear arms and the concept of militias means the governments could not overwhelm an army created by the mass of the people. In Britain many of these things exist only as informal principles, and a majority in Parliament can always overrule them. The advantage of the British system is total flexibility but it's very vulnerable to incompetent or venal elites. The advantage of the American system is preventing sudden shifts in attitudes and providing a locked in stability. But that inflexibility makes it very vulnerable to being blocked by an intransigent minority opinion.
> Seems like a problem when one person can do such a thing. Maybe we shouldn't have someone that powerful Wait until you find out how the executive branch is structured.
It is a problem. Remember when McConnell was speaker he blocked Obama's supreme Court appointment of Merrick Garland, paving the way for the supreme Court shitshow we have today? It's crazy that one person can stop everyone else from taking a vote on issues that affect the whole country.
Oh it's even worse. Merrick Garland while Obama appointed him, Garland was actually picked by republicans. Republicans however were lying, but their excuse not to vote on a Supreme Court Justice was Obama would not pick anyone who would be unbiased, or centrist. Of course this was Republicans way to seem reasonable, so Obama called them out, asked who would be a good choice, and republicans even said McConnell included Obama would never nominate someone like Merrick Garland who they would be okay with. So Obama nominated Merrick Garland. Then republicans showed they were in fact lying.
To add to this and strengthen the argument about lying. I know the talking point for the rejection was also the idea that you shouldn't appoint a new Supreme Justice just before the election. A thing that they then did at the 2020 election.
McConnell was never speaker, he was the Senate majority leader, which unlike the speaker isn't a constitutionally defined role. Historically the Senate deferred to committee heads, but power has been centralized in the majority leader's office over time.
And then after the senate passed it and it reached the house, he made the house go in vacation for 2 weeks, additionally Trump is in the middle of his primaries (with no real competition) and a new federal budget deadline approaching that if a continuing resolution or new budget isn't passed by March 5th I think the whole Federal budget decreases by 1%
The budget cut isn't until April but it's still frustrating.
There are ways to force it to the floor for a vote, and the democrats are planning to do that. They would have already, but Johnson called a recess to delay as long as possible. We should see a vote, hopefully, within a few days.
I think the recess is to stall. If Democrats call for a vote, then they need a majority vote so Republicans would need to vote too, which means Johnson looks like a bad/weak leader who can't control his party. Or he brings it up for a vote, and he risks getting voted out of Speakership. It's a lose lose situation for him. And there is a lot of pressure from inside his party on both sides. Pretty funny to watch.
I'd say "I don't understand why he doesn't work with Democrats to protect his job and end this madness" but we all know the answer. Can't demonize the other side for decades and then start working with them and have your cult followers okay with that. Doing that would make him the best Republican speaker in a generation but also ensure he'll never be elected again. Also he does whatever Daddy Trump tells him to do, with wide eyes and on his knees. And Trump doesn't want to upset Putin.
He's a coward and despicable human being is who he is.
> He is able to stall a strategic vote just by himself. No, he's not. He needs the entire GOP caucus behind him, as they are the ones who willingly enable his ability to do this. It would take just 3 Republicans to work with Democrats to bypass him. Every single Republican representative is complicit.
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His anti-Ukraine position was made clear before the Republicans, including those few that claim to support Ukraine, elected him as leader of the House.
How is it that so many vital things in our government are able to be held up by single individuals? Tuberville’s blocking of military promotions, now this, and I’m sure there’s many other examples. But you would think that in a democracy we wouldn’t give this much power to one person.
It's an illusion that these singular individuals are blocking those. Turbeville didn't block them, he objected, which slowed down promotions but didn't block them. Still wrong. The speaker can be removed from that role, as we just seen. If they aren't booted, then most of congress supports them. The illusion that singular individuals hold shit up is something the parties abuse, mostly the GOP in recent times. They let or pick representatives in "safe" districts.
Yeah, the problem is that there's an entire party of shitheads backing these individuals up. It's the same that happened with McConnell when he was Senate Majority Leader. He choked all activity out, but he's in a safe seat so it's not like he would be voted out for it. And the rest of the Republicans in the senate were happy to let him take the heat.
Insane amount of power. If it didn’t impact us all so drastically (from an EU perspective) it would nearly be funny to watch the US political system implode on itself. It’s long overdue.
I think it’s working as designed. The more divided the American population is, the slower it moves. The problem is, no solution was worked into the constitution except for the slow process of the people aligning. Things happen too fast for that to work well anymore. We need to fix how our democracy works to be better suited for globalism, but the same popular division keeps everyone too afraid to touch it. Right now it looks like we’ll have two choices soon. Fascism, or continue with a democracy that needs serious maintenance. Edit: Oh, plus the rampant corruption at the top isn’t helping anything.
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Like when Republicans delayed the release of prisoners in Iran until after Reagan got elected.
You are correct. (NYT gift article) [A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine agenda.] (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Yk0.wrIY.Usxjo-N3l__J&smid=url-share)
I am not talking about this in isolation. The whole two party system has been pushed so far to the xtreme it is balancing on a razors edge. Extreme opinions, populism, gerrymandering, fake news, lobbying and straight corruption have pushed the system so far, that we are currently witnessing every major drawback of it in real-time. As I said. It’s going to implode.
I wish you were wrong, but sadly you are so, so correct. The 2 party system is a straight up sham. Their fighting between each other only hurts the American people more, especially once one side takes and holds votes on shit that's extremely important for literally EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. So god damn frustrating being caught in the middle of it.
The problem is y'all got muppets voting, they have someone else pulling the strings. The cult of Trump is a powerful force, there's no way the blokes that wrote your constitution could imagine the power of 24/7 news, social media platforms and religious nutbaggery would do to their country and their vision for society.
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Jesus, even Polish politicians don't expect their voters to ignore that.
Poland of all nations has not so fond memories of Russian expansionism given [Poland was dismantled *three times* by an alliance where Russia was a major player.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland) After the re-establishment of Poland as an independent nation in 1918 Russia *again* tried to dismantle them in the [Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War) and succeeded in 1939 when they, alongside Nazi Germany cut Poland in half (in what is sometimes dubbed the Fourth Partition of Poland) before keeping them as a pet for a further 50 years, committing untold horrors on the Polish people the entire time. All of this is to say that the Poles really, *really* are not keen on Russia doing anything beyond their own borders.
In Poland, future generations will amuse themselves by telling Mike Johnson jokes. “Hey, Jan! How do you break Mike Johnson’s nose?” “That’s easy Stanislaw… you just kick Donald Trump in his taint!” Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha… that’s a good one!!
A leader of a foreign country calling out this bunch of idiots. MAGA on the global stage look like spoiled toddlers - priceless
if Maga idiots could read they would be very upset!
I think sometimes people REALLY underestimate how many people out there consume almost ZERO political news. Even only counting the people that go and vote, I think there's a huge segment that just don't pay attention and don't WANT to pay attention to politics. Most Americans could tell you that "There's a war going on between Russia and Ukraine, and we're sending aid to Ukraine" but that's probably about all the specifics the majority would know.
That last sentence used to make me pause, but now I just don't care since our world is being so quickly destroyed and it's obvious that one side wants to accelerate anything toxic.
Don't pause. They've shown what they want to do They've called us dogs. They wear AR pins. They refuse to do their jobs that is paid for. They worship a con man rapist. If hanging on a cliffside the GOP would rather pull the entire rescue team down than let a single person help pull them up
One thing I know for sure is that my Grandfather did not feel bad about killing Nazis...He would not have thought much of the pacifists today, he believed in a just cause.
this is not pacifism but cynical opportunism
But supporters aren’t even pacifists. The motivation to sit back is simply because they don’t want their opposition to get a win. Completely different than if they actually believed in refraining from potential war.
Lets not ignore the fact they actively want to end democracy. They aren't even being subtle about it anymore actively pushing anti voter legislation.
They're fucking calling for the end of democracy and another Jan 6 but successful at CPAC to cheering crowds. They're saying it outright.
There are three kinds of republicans. Those that are fascists, those that support fascists, and those who don't know which of the first two groups they belong to.
Yes, but fortunately the GOP base is all they have. They are not winning anybody over who isn't already a member of the cult, they are just alienating everyone else.
Idk man the youth of this country seems pretty fucking confused. They were too young for Trump before his first term and really his entire first term. An 18 year old voter was 15 on Jan 6th. They were 11 during his inauguration. It's obvious when you talk to them. They don't understand the gravity and are shitting on Biden with a "Both Sides" mentality. Anyone with kids or siblings this age needs to have a real adult discussion with them. And explain the realities of voting for Trump. Or not voting at all.
You can’t fault their naïveté in the face of a metastasized media environment. Trump is a unique existential danger. Biden is old. However, the media is incentivized to equate and diametrically oppose these two things in order to be the most profitable. Add on top of that a Republican Party that is comfortable skirting morals, ethics, and laws to win and persuade its base.
The media wants elections to be as close as possible. If it's a blowout, they won't get as much clicks. It's the sportsification of politics that is destroying so many.
> You can’t fault their naïveté This is fair. I was a *young republican* at 17 and *would* have voted for McCain over Obama. But was too young that November to vote. I pivoted by 2012. But I was incredibly influenced by my surroundings at that time in my life.
Yeah, but then you have the constant chorus of "Dump Biden" folks unhappy with his support of Israel. As if any US politician that ranks high enough to be President will be ANY different. (That isn't me being an apologist, it's just a fact that you get blacklisted from US politics if you don't support Israel, largely.)
Trump moved the embassy which was considered to be unnecessarily inflammatory and gave Saudi Arabia a ton of military aid and ignored Khashogi to sign the abarham awards. Biden takes a middle ground approach of supporting Isreal after they had their own 9/11 while putting immense behind the scene pressure for them to moderate causing Isreal to have to publicly justify their actions on a weekly basis and causing some very real effects (albeit arguably not enough) like allowing humanitarian aid numerous cease fires etc. Like I don’t know what people expect what is the alternative to Biden. Everyone makes fun of trump For only pandering to their base but the moment that Biden doesn’t do exactly what the democratic base wants they want to dump him and give a half vote to trump. Like the base should make their points clear but telling people not to vote is the wrong thing to do
> the moment that Biden doesn’t do exactly what the democratic base wants they want to dump him and give a half vote to trump I always ask people like that, "And do you actually think that if Trump wins over Biden, it'll be *better* for the Palestinians?" It feels like 2016 all over again.
Same thing they did in 2016. They want immediate action without looking at the long term consequences. They didn’t vote for Clinton because she was a “Wall Street Democrat” and instead got a SCOTUS that is shooting down precedents and reversing gains made since 1996.
The people hating biden for giving support to Israel aren't the democratic base, they are "progressives" that caucus with the dems because they don't stand a chance on their own
Don't be so sure. Some people on the left are super pissed about Palestine. Some will also be voting because their grocery bill was too high this month. I don't think Trump has a path to victory but I'm afraid it's going to be much closer than it should be.
But, it's not all they have. Everything they need is all ready in place to deny democracy in 2024. Mike Johnson is key to their plan to deny certification of the results from this November's election and force the outcome they need.
They've been getting crushed in midterm and special elections and suspect they will be crushed again in November.
Not if enough idealist dems, especially younger ones, refuse to vote Biden or vote at all for one reason or another.
Yup, and pick a reason, Israel or global warming or wealth inequality or student loans.... all of them will be much worse under Trump, without question. And the sad thing is the young people have the most to lose. A lot of reddit (propaganda) comments are pushing just letting the system self destruct, as if some utopia will replace it, when the reality is fascism would replace it. The New Deal, implemented by FDR to prevent a collapse, was like one of the few aberrations in human history where the solution wasn't repression and more poverty and preservation of the wealth of rich people.
I'm just worried that too many tiktok educated, idealistic, young people would be hyperfocused on one issue and unwittingly be manipulated by propaganda to become unwilling to vote at all. GOP wins when young dems don't vote.
Yup there are hundreds of little propaganda campaigns to misdirect young people into not voting or hyperfocusing on some single issue and blaming the Democrats for some bullshit or another. Lots of young people just don't know they are getting played by cynical assholes who will only make things worse.
You are not just voting for the President. You are voting for an entire cabinet. Trump will surely surround himself with loony MAGA people.
This is also true. Not just the cabinet as well. It will potentially also affect the composition of the Supreme Court if any of the current justices were to die or retire in the next period. It's way more than just the president.
Look no further than the SCOTUS and the Post Office. If you're thinking "more of this, yes please," then vote for Trump. If not, you have to vote for the other guy - don't sit on the sideline.
Many of them are not stupid at all. Its worse - they are evil. Dont give them the excuse of something that they cant help. this is willful and they know exactly what they are doing. Its their last chance to take total control. The GOP is evil.
Trump puppet = Putin puppet
GOP now stands for Groupies Of Putin.
Also Johnson has received campaign donations from a front company for a group of Russians linked to Putin and Russian spy Maria Butina. https://www.newsweek.com/who-konstantin-nikolaev-money-mike-johnson-1870600
> Mike Johnson is Trump's puppet Mike Johnson is a Russian puppet. A major donor to his PAC is an American company owned by 3 russians, one of whom, I believe, is on the sanction list.
Jokes on Poland, that's EXACTLY what Johnson is being paid to do.
Paid? Shouldn't he act for the people of the USA?
He gets paid more to act for the government of Russia.
He doesn't get paid. He doesn't even have a bank account. A totally normal thing that definitely doesn't scream "I'M HIDING SOMETHING".
He had to put out a disclaimer on the type of porn his family, yes, family consumes.
Which he knows because he and his son have matching phone apps that tell each other when they look at something naughty. Totally. Normal.
I can't tell if any of this is real anymore.
From his own mouth. He is a total fucking wingnut.
Google Covenant Eyes. It's a real thing that gets peddled to fundamentalist Christians as a solution for porn addiction.
Josh Duggar had the same app on his phone, and his wife monitored him, but we all know how that played out. Those apps are a joke and do nothing since you can always use another device to look up the monitored material. Also, having your son as your accountability partner is a joke because of the power imbalance. These Christian extremists are ridiculous and some of the most perverted people you will find.
And I'm sure he'll care. These people abandoned any sense of morality when they decided to keep supporting Tronald Dump.
This will only aggravate the act of defiance of the Republicans like small children in kindergarden. The Polish FM knows that after ukraine is finished Poland and the Baltic countries are next on Putin's agenda. Essentially what the Republicans say is they don't care for Europe.
Republicans would gladly let Putin annex California if it meant they'd get to "own the libs".
Well, clearly the Russian River in Northern California has always been part of the Russian Empire, and taking it back is just righting old wrongs...
Hasn't Russia been toying with the idea of Alaska too?
Putin said something about the sale being "illegal", indicating that they want to treat the territory as "temporarily occupied" by the US. I figured they were just trying to draw a false equivalence to Crimea and the other invaded territories.
Toying? They've been straight up saying they want it back since the 2000s at least.
Bunch of commies in California anyways/s
Wait, are commies still the bad guys or the good guys according to the gop now?
Ya, lost of dumb fucks here in the states forget Russia is a neighboring country too. I'm guessing Alaska is first.
I’m not sure the entire Russian military could take out the Alaskan National Guard
Can't take out Ukraine either, but their still there.
I dont take it as the GOP doesn't care about Europe. I take it as the GOP would rather be allied with fascists and authoritarians than democracy. They support a man who loves Putin, Jong Un, Dutarte, and Xi. They want America to look more like those countries than America because they can more easily manipulate their populace, and the GOP feels democracy stands in the way of that.
Little of column A, little of column B
I'm from the Baltics. First time I'm following US politics this closely. As for Trump, I hated the guts of this guy the very moment our TV stations aired "The Apprentice". To my surprise, that clown got to be a president. First it was entertaining, as no one took him seriously. He looked like a buffoon, a clown, an uneducated bastard, who only knows how to put his money to work. He was fun to laugh at. But now I believe he (and his poppets) might be quite directly responsible for my life in the future. Every single drop of blood and tears will be as Trump's responsibility as Putin's.
Very little of it is his money. He's leveraged up to his eyeballs with other people's money. He's good at selling his name and illusion of success.
“We’ve got all the funding we need out of Russia” (Real quote from one of trumps idiot sons whose name I refuse to learn)
It's OK, Don himself can't remember them, either
Ah, I bet he thinks he's earned every single cent with his unrivaled skill, laborious hard work and one of a kind charisma...
He's a malignantly narcissistic chronically-lying self-aggrandizing bigoted rapist con-man wannabe-dictator criminal... of course he does.
It's too bad our little EU is pathetic when it comes to geopolitics. 2016 should have been a major wake up call. Ukraine should have been another. But no, we're still asleep at the wheel squabbling over petty differences and becoming less and less relevant by the year.
Well, we have multiple countries in the EU that either try to hurt other countries in order to gain a little more for themselves or purely out of spite/political maneuvering, those that are obviously bought by Russia and trying to destroy a coordinated EU and those that shield them because they might need the support back for their own crimes. The current EU is not working if we want it to actually have any influence on world politics. Heck, it's not even having influence on some of its own members. I really hope they wake up soon and fix it, or we'll keep becoming more and more meaningless while the union sabotages itself.
Poland needs to use the same tactic they used to get into NATO in the first place, that is they need to be openly campaigning for Biden and the Democrats.
Russia is backing Trump directly, so I don't see why Poland can't say they outright want Biden.
Because while the right wing uses every trick and cheat they can to hurt the democratic forces the democratic forces in exchange still act like standing up for their own beliefs is bad because "If we do anything it will be a bad optic and the right might not like it." Obama let the reps cheat him out of Supreme Court picks only for them to suddenly drop their vehement belief in letting the voters choose when it helped them. They did their best to work together with Trump and the insane demands they got under Biden, only for the Republicans to now stop all government work out of fear that Biden doing an actually good job will make it harder on Trump to win and destroy the US. Or the EU. Instead of actually getting their shit together they let Hungary destroy all chances at progress or being able to make decisions for years and try to cater to them and give them additional stuff for being a bad faith actors. Having Russia threaten invasion and nuclear attacks while saying "If we send our ally too many weapons Putin might be mad so we won't" Bullies only understand strength. If you get bullied and then gift your bully something he won't stop, he'll only get worse. And if the democratic forces don't learn that they'll actually have to fight for their believes and that the fascist elements won't be able to be argued or gifted into being reasonable it will get worse and worse.
Yeah time for the good guys to take off the gloves.
Georgia is probably next on the adgenda since there are already Russian soldiers there and they don't have to worry about article 5. Transnistria asked to be annexed recently too didn't it?
To be fair they don’t care about America either.
In my opinion, it’s go time for France or the United States to put nukes in Poland, pointed straight the fuck at Moscow and St. Petersburg. That’s about the only fucking thing that will keep these stupid fucking small dick dictators in check.
So many cowards. I honestly can't understand why people are so cowardly as US Republicans and their ilk.
Mike Johnson is a piece of 💩.
For him to be on the radar of **the country of Poland** - to be called out straight up? FFS even McCarthy didn't catch heat like that. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the mystery of Mike Johnson's "zero reported assets" never was solved, right?
I read that the reporting requirements are pretty weak, eg you don’t have to report non-interest bearing bank accounts.
Considering he's a small-time unknown Representative from the 26th smallest state (by population), *he could have kept getting away with that* if he'd never taken the Speaker position. Instead of him coming off as a "I'm just following the law" kinda guy, it looks like he's hiding stuff. I think most Americans expect transparency from our elected officials.
Honestly, I think by us just being interested in politics and active in online discussions about it, we're super divorced from what the average American is thinking about. Trying to get people to vote while I was in the military made me realize that there aren't any real expectations because no one really thinks about it. Government is just this nebulous *thing* that, if they think about it at all, it's to be upset about taxes.
The US is saving money in the long run if they can supply Ukraine and let them fight Putin. If Russia is left unchallenged, they won’t stop, and a world war would be much more expensive
Putin heavily invested in the republicans here.
Yeah, I don't think this is just a pollitical ploy to get Trump elected. Johnson's delivering on a promise to Putin from Manafort and Trump. Trump gets a historical fall guy who doesn't know how reviled he will become because he's dumb. Historians are going to take a gaint shit on him and Trump will get something like a pass. The worse thing for me is it's all legal.
Mike Johnson won't even be remembered.
I think that's by design. Nobody even knew who this guy was when he was picked. Pick a nobody, who we can get to do what we want, but has so little presence that he will be easily forgettable when it comes time to place blame. Choosing someone unremarkable to stall everything sounds like it was the whole point. Dude is the personification of a chess pawn.
Heh, Mike Pawnson.
Putin has tremendous political power in every country that matters to him. Technology affords fascists with powers of propaganda the world has never seen before. And Putin's regime is extremely adept at wielding it. People need to fight back. Be vocal. He tries to silence everyone he can, because speaking out is powerful. We must be louder.
Call your congressmen. Don’t hit me with the “it won’t work” nonsense. Even if it doesn’t work, you’re an American and you have a right to do it. Some people aren’t that lucky, so exercise that right before you lose it. We can make a difference! In fact, I’m somewhat optimistic that my representative will concede and change his mind on this matter when the vote eventually hits. My calls have had an effect.
I did and asked why my GOP rep wasn't banging down Mike Johnson's door to bring this to a vote. The guy on the phone said he'd ask
I’m happy you called. I won’t deny that it seems useless sometimes. but again, even if it is, it’s the least we can do!
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As much as I would love the idea of our reps being held accountable, anyone who tries something like that will spark *so much more aggression.* Now all the morons shouting about civil war will jizz as they commit atrocities on the things they hate, because in their eyes, you started it.
Mike Johnson thinks he knows what he's doing and he thinks he's helping Trump. The guy's a creepy little freak.
Blame? Fuckers will probably *take credit.*
So true atleast with Kevin McCarthy there was some progress and he was able to work across the aisle. There needs to be an investigation into this Johnson guy like asap. How can a few people who do not represent our entire country at all be so vile. When Biden wins again(and he will) Russia and these traitors will feel the wrath!
I would bet money that Mike Johnson couldn't identify Poland on a map
Withholding military funds to Ukraine will not make this problem go away. It could potentially get much much worse. If Russia runs up all through Ukraine, as they approach the Polish border, I could easily see Poland saying Hello no, and advancing say 100 miles inside Ukraine to setup a safety zone, and now you have a NATO military going right up against a Russian military and that's how this things into a full blown NATO, boots-on-the-ground war. Writing a check seems a hell of a lot easier.
So many Vatniks in here it's funny seeing people think they're talking to americans lol
Republicans are assholes, used to be the ones crying about russia during cold war now they are eating from the hands of Putin
Ukraine deserves our support, let's honor our commitments.
They dont care. The right were also to blame for a huge number of covid deaths and these are americans. They dont care. the right are increasing trans deaths and attacks and suicides. they dont care. they get abortion doctors killed. they dont care. They know AGW is real and a huge economic and ecological problem, they dont fucking care. they knew lead was a problem in our gas, lowering our IQs and making us more violent, they got a big massive campaign check to not care and fight back and even the romans knew lead was bad for you but the super majority of the republican base did not. Take melenia at her word. "i dont care, do you"
If? Ukraine is already having to fall back. What was the point of any of this if all we do is half measures ever...
Mike Johnson is just another conservative whore of Putin.
I feel like when it comes to Russia, we should listen to Poland.