You have to wonder what it would take to get House and Senate Republicans to get off their collective duffs and walk across their respective cloak rooms to smell the proverbial coffee.
The Putin Republicans are doing everything they can to hand Ukraine over to their true leader. While the MAGA House is playing with itself, an anonymous group of Republican Senators is meeting with Victor Orban to plan ways to hand Ukraine over to Putin. This illegal and immoral interference in foreign policy should get them charged with violations of the Logan Act, if not with treason, and since it was arranged by the Heritage Foundation, Heritage should lose its 501c3 status immediately. Republicans will scream. Biden should simply tell them to f'k off.
For fairly obvious and much discussed reasons, the meeting with Orban has been kept very hush hush. I am not the least bit surprised by the Republicans here. Nixon's people met with the Vietnamese and killed a peace plan to screw Humphrey. Reagan's people met with the Ayatollah to screw Carter. Tom Cotton and others also tried to deal with Iran to screw Obama. Why should we be surprised that Republicans would meet with Orban to screw Biden?
Thank you. Again nothing teaches us as humans like the experience of bearing witness. I find this piece profoundly true, all these words of yours describing the evidence of your own eyes. (My own narrower experience of seeing the physical destruction of ww2 in Europe I cannot unsee decades later.)
We’re on the threshold of seeing catastrophe unfold not only for Ukraine but inevitably for the world - a Putin inspired cancer that will die with him one day but not before it has infected the recalcitrant GOP foot soldiers he has gathered.
Clearly there is no excuse for any person who reaches the level of a position in Congress to be ignorant of history. Yet they are - and worse - some blatant traitors to democracy.
Ukraine today, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. tomorrow. We NEVER should have withheld those F-16s and drip-dripped weapons and money to Ukraine. We set them up for failure.
My father-in-law, Rolf, was born in Berlin in 1934. He's still with us, approaching 100. He was profoundly affected by the war in Germany, played in the hovel after Allied forces bombed the area, saw hundreds of nearly nude Jewish people lined up at the train station, escaped Germany at the age of 13 with his British mother and two younger brothers. His father was "recruited" into the German army and ended up dying in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp from dysentery. The disastrous effects of that war and loss of his father were all soaked into Rolf and then dripped onto his two sons. Rolf married an Armenian woman, so you have the effects of two genocides on one family, with the trauma circulating for generations. What a waste.
My mother was from Berlin. My dad was from Poland. Both escaped their countries. My mom’s parents did not. They were gassed at the camp called Chelmno in 1942. My father’s village in Poland is now in the Ukraine, the city of Borsylav.
The war in Ukraine is tragic and I truly feel, in my heart, that Putin started this war because he could not believe the Ukrainians voted for an actor who happened to be Jewish. He hates Jews and thus, is punishing those who had the audacity to pick a guy who had nothing but theater to lead them.
Lucian, what is most stunning to me is just how both cavalier and devious this group of Senators is being and in the process chortling as to how they have tied up Joe Biden and made his life more difficult. They are, of course, doing it with the blood and lives of the Ukrainians who now stand between Putin and his dreams of conquest. In doing so they seem to believe human life and freedom is a fungible commodity for their vain glorious wishes and dreams of "winning" a political battle to not fix our immigration system with any far reaching and comprehensive approach but to put a short term band aid in place which will give them the justification to claim to their base "We beat Biden and the Democrats and made the border safer" when in fact that will not be the case.
All of them are reprehensible but the worst of the bunch are the Senators and Representatives with some degree of military service who should know better what combat means and the high cost of not standing with your comrades when under fire. Men like Cotton and 'Vance both of whom likely got Purple Hearts from the paper cuts they got serving in rear echelon legal and PIO billets.
I wrote to sen. Schumer to try to appease these idiots to in some way to get this aid passed. I guess not. This country will suffer fo this abandonment. No one will trust us again.
The Russian Presidential elections are upcoming in March. Waiting for Putin to declare victory any day now. Trump learned from him or, was with the other way around?
The RNC has been aligned with Russian oligarchs for decades--they are TRAITORS. Russian Agents. They have a division dedicated to foreign meddling--thats where Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone et al got their paychecks !!!
The appeasers in the GOP threaten to give Putin "only the Sudetenland" in what they know to be a "land for peace" agreement guaranteed by his signature on a piece of paper. That minimum is not his agenda at all, except as a first step to restoring the Slavic components of the Russian Empire and then the non-Slavic ones of the Soviet empire.
One would think that the American military Industrial complex would be telling Republican pols in red states that their economies benefit from defense production for the Ukraine war. Even Trump should know that he can get his pockets mined if he plays ball. As i have often said, on issues like the Ukraine war you can get to the same place by either making a good moral decision or just following your economic interest
Ms Magill, former Pres of Penn could also have benefitted from this line of thinking
Agree there is more than one way to arrive at the same or similar conclusion and result.
Keep in mind the US is on the cusp of an election, therefore Rs will be more focused on what their voters want to hear than listening to the MIC lobbyists.
Their voters want to hear magical platitudes, bumper sticker talk, platitudes, (time tested by the likes of Atwater, Luntz, and disciples) 4 e.g. America First, the "open" borders, corruption, Hunter, Impeachment etc. And most of all want to hear Rs strongly oppose the President/CinC, SECDEF, NATO, President Zelensky and the Ds.
The MIC know well they will get their oversized slice of the pie if/when Rs control the WH and iithah chamber. It's no coincidence the MIC loves opening and expanding facilities in red states while reaping local and state tax breaks and incentives that increase profit while reducing expenses all the while downsizing in blue states. Just as what happened with mil bases.
I worry that history is against us. Everyone says Biden should speak out and be more forceful. Now, when we need forceful leadership he is distracted by the Middle East war. The man can't catch a break. The Palestinian/Israel conflict will last a thousand years. There will never be peace there. Never. Even if one side is completely destroyed and wiped out of existence the hatred will remain forever. I wish Biden would just concentrate on protecting America and Europe. That's a task that is doable.
The whole thing is soul-crushing. When Mr. T. writes, "it’s someone else’s problem," (the obstructionist Republicans' attitude) all I can think of is the Speaker of the House, Jerk Johnson, is speaking for all the Republicans who can't think. As others have noted here, it's as though many of the R.s are acting as if they're members of the DUMA. They seem unable to fathom that Ukraine falling means Europe may, as well, and we are tied to NATO, ergo, WWIII. I would love for one of those crackpots to tell me why life will be so wonderful under a dictatorship. Maybe they think they'll be included in the upper ranks. They won't.
Truly a shame and a loss for the nation that Rs and cons refuse to read your columns, articles, or Substacks. Some might notice your ability to draw the right lessons from history as opposed to the late Kissinger who drew all the wrong lessons.
The Putin Republicans are doing everything they can to hand Ukraine over to their true leader. While the MAGA House is playing with itself, an anonymous group of Republican Senators is meeting with Victor Orban to plan ways to hand Ukraine over to Putin. This illegal and immoral interference in foreign policy should get them charged with violations of the Logan Act, if not with treason, and since it was arranged by the Heritage Foundation, Heritage should lose its 501c3 status immediately. Republicans will scream. Biden should simply tell them to f'k off.
Where can I read more about these assertions?
Washington Post, MSNBC, NY Times, multiple progressive websites. Or just do the Google.
Guess I've been reading the wrong sections.
For fairly obvious and much discussed reasons, the meeting with Orban has been kept very hush hush. I am not the least bit surprised by the Republicans here. Nixon's people met with the Vietnamese and killed a peace plan to screw Humphrey. Reagan's people met with the Ayatollah to screw Carter. Tom Cotton and others also tried to deal with Iran to screw Obama. Why should we be surprised that Republicans would meet with Orban to screw Biden?
Good to see some i's dotted, t's crossed, Peter. Makes it easier to duckduckgo parts of the whole. (google is too nosy for my taste.)
I agree.
Thank you. Again nothing teaches us as humans like the experience of bearing witness. I find this piece profoundly true, all these words of yours describing the evidence of your own eyes. (My own narrower experience of seeing the physical destruction of ww2 in Europe I cannot unsee decades later.)
We’re on the threshold of seeing catastrophe unfold not only for Ukraine but inevitably for the world - a Putin inspired cancer that will die with him one day but not before it has infected the recalcitrant GOP foot soldiers he has gathered.
Clearly there is no excuse for any person who reaches the level of a position in Congress to be ignorant of history. Yet they are - and worse - some blatant traitors to democracy.
Ukraine today, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. tomorrow. We NEVER should have withheld those F-16s and drip-dripped weapons and money to Ukraine. We set them up for failure.
Caucus does not care. Zero empathy. Will go with anything to be Contrarians vs Dems. It’s tantamount to dealing with surly, self-centered 14 yr old.
My father-in-law, Rolf, was born in Berlin in 1934. He's still with us, approaching 100. He was profoundly affected by the war in Germany, played in the hovel after Allied forces bombed the area, saw hundreds of nearly nude Jewish people lined up at the train station, escaped Germany at the age of 13 with his British mother and two younger brothers. His father was "recruited" into the German army and ended up dying in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp from dysentery. The disastrous effects of that war and loss of his father were all soaked into Rolf and then dripped onto his two sons. Rolf married an Armenian woman, so you have the effects of two genocides on one family, with the trauma circulating for generations. What a waste.
My mother was from Berlin. My dad was from Poland. Both escaped their countries. My mom’s parents did not. They were gassed at the camp called Chelmno in 1942. My father’s village in Poland is now in the Ukraine, the city of Borsylav.
The war in Ukraine is tragic and I truly feel, in my heart, that Putin started this war because he could not believe the Ukrainians voted for an actor who happened to be Jewish. He hates Jews and thus, is punishing those who had the audacity to pick a guy who had nothing but theater to lead them.
So difficult to fathom why people like Putin so wantonly destroy the world and everyone in it.
Greed and power is what drives dictators.
Lucian, what is most stunning to me is just how both cavalier and devious this group of Senators is being and in the process chortling as to how they have tied up Joe Biden and made his life more difficult. They are, of course, doing it with the blood and lives of the Ukrainians who now stand between Putin and his dreams of conquest. In doing so they seem to believe human life and freedom is a fungible commodity for their vain glorious wishes and dreams of "winning" a political battle to not fix our immigration system with any far reaching and comprehensive approach but to put a short term band aid in place which will give them the justification to claim to their base "We beat Biden and the Democrats and made the border safer" when in fact that will not be the case.
All of them are reprehensible but the worst of the bunch are the Senators and Representatives with some degree of military service who should know better what combat means and the high cost of not standing with your comrades when under fire. Men like Cotton and 'Vance both of whom likely got Purple Hearts from the paper cuts they got serving in rear echelon legal and PIO billets.
Shame on all of them, Quislings to the end.
I’m so angry and so scared for Ukraine. Everyday I read about the delays... just say out loud, very loudly....WTF?????
I wrote to sen. Schumer to try to appease these idiots to in some way to get this aid passed. I guess not. This country will suffer fo this abandonment. No one will trust us again.
The Russian Presidential elections are upcoming in March. Waiting for Putin to declare victory any day now. Trump learned from him or, was with the other way around?
These GOP scumbags truly prefer Putin and Orbanto Zelensky,
their fascistic values are in perfect allignment.
The RNC has been aligned with Russian oligarchs for decades--they are TRAITORS. Russian Agents. They have a division dedicated to foreign meddling--thats where Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone et al got their paychecks !!!
There is an actual civil war under way in America.
The Republican Party is at war with America on behalf of a pathological liar.
The appeasers in the GOP threaten to give Putin "only the Sudetenland" in what they know to be a "land for peace" agreement guaranteed by his signature on a piece of paper. That minimum is not his agenda at all, except as a first step to restoring the Slavic components of the Russian Empire and then the non-Slavic ones of the Soviet empire.
One would think that the American military Industrial complex would be telling Republican pols in red states that their economies benefit from defense production for the Ukraine war. Even Trump should know that he can get his pockets mined if he plays ball. As i have often said, on issues like the Ukraine war you can get to the same place by either making a good moral decision or just following your economic interest
Ms Magill, former Pres of Penn could also have benefitted from this line of thinking
Agree there is more than one way to arrive at the same or similar conclusion and result.
Keep in mind the US is on the cusp of an election, therefore Rs will be more focused on what their voters want to hear than listening to the MIC lobbyists.
Their voters want to hear magical platitudes, bumper sticker talk, platitudes, (time tested by the likes of Atwater, Luntz, and disciples) 4 e.g. America First, the "open" borders, corruption, Hunter, Impeachment etc. And most of all want to hear Rs strongly oppose the President/CinC, SECDEF, NATO, President Zelensky and the Ds.
The MIC know well they will get their oversized slice of the pie if/when Rs control the WH and iithah chamber. It's no coincidence the MIC loves opening and expanding facilities in red states while reaping local and state tax breaks and incentives that increase profit while reducing expenses all the while downsizing in blue states. Just as what happened with mil bases.
I worry that history is against us. Everyone says Biden should speak out and be more forceful. Now, when we need forceful leadership he is distracted by the Middle East war. The man can't catch a break. The Palestinian/Israel conflict will last a thousand years. There will never be peace there. Never. Even if one side is completely destroyed and wiped out of existence the hatred will remain forever. I wish Biden would just concentrate on protecting America and Europe. That's a task that is doable.
The whole thing is soul-crushing. When Mr. T. writes, "it’s someone else’s problem," (the obstructionist Republicans' attitude) all I can think of is the Speaker of the House, Jerk Johnson, is speaking for all the Republicans who can't think. As others have noted here, it's as though many of the R.s are acting as if they're members of the DUMA. They seem unable to fathom that Ukraine falling means Europe may, as well, and we are tied to NATO, ergo, WWIII. I would love for one of those crackpots to tell me why life will be so wonderful under a dictatorship. Maybe they think they'll be included in the upper ranks. They won't.
"That appears to be the attitude of the Republican Party." Let's change that to the Putin's Party. Eisenhower must be spinning in his grave.
Truly a shame and a loss for the nation that Rs and cons refuse to read your columns, articles, or Substacks. Some might notice your ability to draw the right lessons from history as opposed to the late Kissinger who drew all the wrong lessons.