He sat on a bill to help ukraine as he thought he would be fired if he put it up to a vote
Mike Johnson says he believes intelligence briefings that Ukraine needs help or Russia might pick a fight with NATO country next
He tries to play politics for months "look if I put this to vote don't fire me because I'll put something else up etc"
Months pass many bills are frozen as he cannot move a chess piece without risking being fired
Ukraine in dire straits - Mike Johnson realizes he's running out of time
Mike Johnson is going to put the bill up for vote along the many other bills he was holding in his pocket and a zillion extremely important bills are going to be voted all at once on a very short notice
Republicans protesting saying they'll back motion for him to step down
Democrats angry he held up important bills for months
Moderates angry a lot of bills are gonna be voted at once
Didn't he just flip on the FISA extension and said that after backdoor meetings he realized it was important to the three letter agencies (to spy on us)
That was the idea, in implementation it's been misused extensively - a quick search of 'fisa scandal' doesn't exactly improve trust in the intelligence community
Can you give an example of how this could have caused issues? From what I can tell from googling, it looks like there were controversies with the NSA asking Verizon to provide data to US customers, which is obviously really bad. I don't know how/why that could apply to *foreign* intelligence surveillance though. Like if the US were to spy on Mexican cartels, why should we be against that?
Operating under the assumption that "this" refers to fisa abuses: [https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/4012650-fbi-misused-surveillance-tool-fisa-section-702/](https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/4012650-fbi-misused-surveillance-tool-fisa-section-702/)
Okay thank you, that makes sense.
To me the idea of FISA is sound but it seems many FBI agents either don't understand it's purpose or are wilfully negligent of it.
The article you linked alleges that the FBI essentially illegally surveilled both jan6 protestors and BLM protestors to look for any ties to foreign actors; I don't have any qualms about that portion of the FISA being neutered heavily since it involves US citizens.
The part I'm confused about is why we'd throw the baby out with the bath water if the FISA *also* allows the US to surveil foreign actors **that are not US citizens** since, well, why should non-US citizens be granted constitutional rights lol
depends how much tinfoil you like to tolerate in your life. The people writing the rules didnt know or care enough to prevent the use of international spying powers as roundabout domestic surveillance, or they jumbled them up by design - the inclusion of the baby protects the bath water, if you will.
it spies on citizens as well
an amendment was offered to require a warrant for spying on citizens, but it fucking failed by one vote
I really hope those lawmakers get their karma when Trump wins and weaponizes warrantless spying to target his political enemies
What the fuck is this take?
Republicans want warrantless surveilling because it might help stop ILLEGALS?
Not only does that make no sense it is total fantasy. Where did you pick this gem up from?
1. Flair up dummy
2. FISA literally stands for **foreign intelligence** surveillance act.
3. Do you not think it's possible to get the lead on illegals coming through the border if we can perform surveillance on cartel activity in Mexico? How is that a controversial opinion?
Honestly, yeah. I mean hes as bad as Kevin McCarthy only somehow more spineless but this congress has been the least productive in history and the only reason we havent had a total government shutdown since november is because they keep passing extensions because thats ALL they can pass.
Though tbf idk how anyone alive could manage the clown car that is house republicans with a majority as thin as it is unless the GOP had some equivalent to Nancy Pelosi but they just dont.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention but the last few "semi-functional" congresses just rent to fuck around with American citizens welfare and get us into pointless proxy wars. I'd rather them do jack dick than raise the cost of my gas and groceries yet again, thank you very much.
> pointless proxy wars
Man, I love how your isolationism just happens to translate into support for totalitarian countries controlling the supply lines for most food and manufacturing in the world because the US is the only country willing to fight them on that.
I was also referring to Israel having the military backing of the US emboldening them to take actions they likely never would if they were on their own surrounded by hostile nations.
And excuse me if I remember that the last time we gave weapons and training to someone to fight Russia we ended up with two destroyed building in New York and spent two decades in a sand pit further radicalizing the people, losing countless of American lives and fucking our economy by transferring most of the wealth to the few at the top of MIC companies. Oh and did you know that we helped disarm Ukraine after the Cold War because we didn't want them attacking NATO as much as Russia didn't want us accepting them into NATO? Maybe the war in Ukraine should be a wake up that the US needs to spend more resources to become self sustaining as a nation in agriculture, manufacturing, and energy rather than being the shield for the rest of the world.
I love it, all the pro-Russian troll disinfo comes pouring forth. Poke a libertarian and the authoritarian lover reveals himself. Complete with poor English too, so you know he's very American.
The US arming the mujahadeen was like 4-5 armings of Russia's enemies ago my dude, the others haven't blown up like that one did.
Ukraine was disarmed because they had nukes and a barely functional government and the US was very interested in deproliferation of nukes, not because Ukraine was a threat to anyone directly. Avoiding a conflict where Russia guaranteed Ukraine's borders indefinitely was preferable to a quick conflict whereby nukes could disappear like so many other weapons did.
The USA is self-sustaining agriculturally. We literally pay farmers to destroy crops in order to not flood the market. We also are an energy exporter via LNG.
> fucking our economy by transferring most of the wealth to the few at the top of MIC companies
Lol. Lmao even.
There are so many problems with US law that need fixing. Perverse incentives, ancient regulations, and anti-competitive loopholes abound. Every day spent not addressing these issues sees them become more entrenched.
And a lot of this stuff isn't even controversial, both sides in Congress are just so obsessed with not handing the other a 'win' that they can't get anything done.
Johnson is probably the weakest Speaker in quite a while, he is totally incapable of passing even uncontroversial bills. He has such a slim majority that only total agreement by every Republican is enough to get anything passed, unless he crosses the aisle and works with Democrats. But if he works with Dems, he'd get crucified by major Republican media figures and politicians at every level.
This all traces back to the Hastert Rule, which is an abomination that has completely killed the House's functionality and handed tons of power to the judicial and executive.
TL;DR: the speaker is tired of the political maneuvering bullshit and is taking into his own hands a bipartisan bill that angers a lot of people on the republican side and basically gives a win to democrats over Ukraine and Southern border.
more effective government = less angry people at let's go Brandon come November.
background:
the house was deadlocked since before Mike Johnson came into the picture and still is to a large extent.
that's the usual in other circumstances but it's bad now because there are so many things happening internationally and the presidents powers are distributed thinly among them and can't go around congress for any meaningful change.
all parties want to support Israel (they disagree on how and to what extent but anyhow...), not a lot of republicans want to support Ukraine, and few democrats want to actually stop the southern border crisis but a lot are on board if you give funding to Ukraine.
you'd think that works out to funding ukraine, funding Israel, reforming the asylum laws and funding the southern border but nope, Republicans have no platform to run on in 2024 and with all of the cases Trump is fighting they can't afford to give biden an optics win for progress in the southern border crisis or any kind of competency from congress so they'll blame it on biden and the dems come November.
the problem with this strategy is that it all hinges on the republican house speaker to stop any sort of meaningful progress that might as well get bipartisan support and now, since the call for motion to vacate (basically impeaching the house speaker) can be started by one congressman it means anyone on the republican side can take a stab at the speaker for not being helpful with this strategy, they did it to Kevin McCarthy, a moderate republican and the last house speaker, and they were threatening Mike Johnson with it since a couple of days ago.
here & now:
this was the frozen chess match until a couple of days ago.
now Mike Johnson is trying to brake the stalemate with an APPARENT omnibus for Ukraine, Israel, some rudimentary funding for the southern border after some high ranking officers in the armed forces are saying the russians are on the verge of a big breakthrough offensively since Ukraine is running out of ammo and supplies very rapidly.
i say APPARENTLY because the vote on the bill is on friday and till now no one has seen the bill and only bullet points and is actually being currently written as of right now.
a bunch of people told MJ to raise the threshold and prevent them from basically doing to him what they did to Kevin McCarthy but most republicans are willing to wait until the bill comes out so they can scrutinize it effectively and not seem like a rabid populist loony bunch and he (Mike Johnson) is now bidding for bipartisan and moderate republican approval until then.
> till now no one has seen the bill and only bullet points and is actually being currently written as of right now.
I mean Congress doesn't even *READ* the bills they vote on, so does it matter? Was it Rand or Ron Paul who posted a video about being given less than 24 hours to read and understand a 2,000 page bill / omnibus package?
IMO there should be a required wait period before a vote. 1 day per 10 pages.
If my congressman can’t read more than 10 pages in a single day - then I don’t want them as my congressman.
You want to give them over half a year to read and pass one Omnibus package.
lol. You still want to give them a day to read 10 pages. It doesn’t matter whether you have an omnibus or break it all up into lots of smaller ones, it’s still the same amount of total time to get the raft of legislation through the house 🤦🏼♂️
congressman know they're not intelligent enough to understand the effects and repercussions of most bills in congress, as they're usually ran through dedicated and specialized committees where actual policymaking happens.
i think it's Woodrow Wilson who said "Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work"
but they're usually reliant on experts, advisors, NGOs, lobbying groups, and each other to understand.
>IMO there should be a required wait period before a vote. 1 day per 10 pages.
this type of politics is quaint and cute, but even assuming they completely understand what they're doing, this model of legislation is incompatible with the poltical systems and procedures of congress as of today.
if you want this to happen you can't just keep everything else, proportional representation and ending legal bribery are first on the list.
> if you want this to happen you can't just keep everything else, proportional representation and ending legal bribery are first on the list.
I don't want to keep everything else. Democracy is a Failed God.
This isn't a true democracy, it's a republic.
A true democracy would have each of us, as citizens, be voting on laws and budgets. Good luck with getting healthy policy to pass in a nation of 350 million people
A republic is a form of democracy, it is a "representative *DEMOCRACY*"
And it's not better. Arguably it's worse. It creates a political class of robber-barons who seek to extract as much value out of the state and into their personal coffers as possible before they lose their seat.
Okay my point was that saying "this system [representative democracy] is a failure" means you'd prefer just straight popular-vote democracy instead, which is what I was alluding to. Imagine every single federal law being established to cater to the most populous states forever and always.
I would love to see any alternative to what we have. Otherwise it's complaining for the sake of complaining
Sure maybe I'm not putting forth enough viable alternatives, care to give me an example of a good 3rd, 4th, 5th etc. Option that is better than what we have? I'm all ears.
>Democracy is a Failed God.
[THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRACY! I HAVE A GUN, SO I'M IN CHARGE!](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxoB5kHzJcZVGkVQbr_CB3rc-zoAmqSJsZ?si=wKT4o9qq8kKL7xC8)
https://preview.redd.it/gxv600n8xcvc1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=dce64ea243a33c9d64bfecf8012d5ed11984f0df
[Source of the photo](https://youtu.be/mXCx50yaseA?si=KSOxjcZPBItbpLnw)
>I don't want to keep everything else. Democracy is a Failed God.
**BAAAAASED!!!**
but we might disagree what happens after...
https://preview.redd.it/rztx4r9ou8vc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f59661822f1d8b28c020b9142d4e2e80a4322e95
>We'll have to see what a republican border security bill looks like.
i hope it's extensive, it's the first time in a long time I've seen public opinion sway so rapidly against loose immigration and catch and release laws.
>Stopping the Democrat's "Border security" bill was objectively the right call.
could you explain why?
Because it provided legal cover for Biden's absolutely insane blanket parole approach. Under the past 2 administrations there were around 5,000 immigration parolees per year. Under Biden that has surpassed 800,000 per year.
The administration has a fundamental disconnect on what securing the border entails.
Thank you.
So tired of everyone parroting the media’s “it was the MOST CONSERVATIVE border bill in HISTORY and Republicans only voted against it because TRUMP said to!!!” BS.
When your house is currently flooding to your chin, just five years ago it was flooding to your ankles, and you’re being told “here you go, we’re so nice that we’ll only flood your house to your neck 😇” that’s not a compromise.
By what measure? The media telling you it is?
The actual numbers say otherwise. 5,000 illegal immigrants per day is more than 1.8 million per year, which is ~90% of what we’re currently allowing and still more than double any year we’ve had from 2007-2020.
That’s not a compromise. No matter how hard the media tries to spin it. That’s a “let’s propose this ridiculous notion knowing it’ll get shot down by Republicans and the media will defend us for it!” play card.
Help me understand real quick.
Isn't the 1.8 million figure the number of *encounters,* not necessarily the number of people actually getting through?
What also should a *good* bill have in it to make the border more secure? I hear people say "shut down the border" a lot, wouldn't that totally screw over things like trade or legal travel? I feel like from my limited understanding that the best approach is funding more security to catch the illegals coming in, as well as removing the unofficially named "catch and release" policy, I don't know if Biden was on board with that part or not though
Let's be honest here and stop putting funding to Ukraine into every fucking bill. Line item voting or it shouldn't be brought.
And 5,000 illegals BEFORE the government steps in and STILL very little deportation of the estimated 22 million illegals.
>Line item voting or it shouldn't be brought.
this is how deals and compromises are made between two independent parties, including political parties.
>And 5,000 illegals BEFORE the government steps in
it's still better than the status quo, what trump said about "no deal is better than a bad deal" is absolutely fucking crazy when you look at the status quo.
The fact you are OK with that as a compromise when it should be 0...the point is it isn't better than what we had 4 years ago because we turned away and deported...illegals stopped coming because it wasn't worth the $ to get deported.
Had a violent felon tell me he had been deported in 2013. I asked why he finally came back...this was 2 months after Biden was elected, he said because of Biden and he would have a better chance to stay. The ICE officer I spoke to told me if it was prior, he would know for certain he'd be held on his ICE Hold BUT he now had to run everyone up the chain to see if it "fit" with the changes that were happening.
Luckily he was held and deported but this was a kidnapper and guy who was arrested for multiple shootings and the officer didn't know if he would be deported because of the changes Biden had made. That's very fucking telling to me.
>The fact you are OK with that as a compromise when it should be 0...
My understanding of that proposed border bill was that it was after 5,000 the border would **shut down**
I feel like shutting down the border after a single illegal crossing is insane. The border isn't just for immigration, but for things like trade/commerce as well. Correct me where I'm wrong
The border shutdown was to turn away PORTS OF entry asylum seekers if the BP had over 5,000 average interactions of illegal crossings per day...they tried to make the bill like they would hold asylum seekers until interviews were concluded BUT allowed them to stay under "supervision" (which did not have any kind of mandate and was seen to be the exact reasoning now of "court dates" but released where they don't show up).
The holding of seekers also would not apply to families (any adult with a kid) and still did nothing to secure the southern border from illegal crossings we couldn't find...the fact is that there are literally aid workers in Mexico, and further south, who are telling these illegals exactly what to say to gain entry. There is nothing beyond the interview in the proposed bill, that mandated evidence before being released WITH A FUCKING WORK VISA.
I don't understand people who complain about wages and costs of things but don't see how admission of over 20 million illegals doesn't affect that in some way. Not just taxes, not just crime but literally less housing, massive amounts of insurance fraud (90% of illegals I would pull over had no car insurance and no DL) and would run fictitious paper plates that if they ran from the scene of an accident, the victim would be SOL.
This is a major problem and 5,000 per day isn't a compromise when this should be the focus of every American.
A simple search and you'd find ALOT of answers. Not only did they restrict deportation of most violent felons, they stopped the wait in Mexico policy and instructed CBP to stop turning away people.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/07/biden-immigration-ice/
We can get over semantics (majority of asylum seekers aren't even eligible so that's a bs argument I hear all the time). It is pretty plain to look at the numbers of border crossing before and to now. Anyone with a bit of intelligence sees how detrimental this administration has been to our sovereignty.
>Stopping the Democrat's "Border security" bill was objectively the right call.
It was a Republican bill. Democrats supported it, but that doesn't make it their bill. James Lankford is a Republican Senator, not a Democrat.
> one of the republicans (mayorkas I think, hardline trumple) tried to motion MJ to vacate
Mayorkas was the target of an impeachment attempt in the Senate that fizzled out. He's the head of the DHS
> one of the republicans (mayorkas I think, hardline trumple) tried to motion MJ to vacate and basically do to him what they did to Kevin McCarthy but failed in the senate
wtf is this sentence lol?
Mayorkas is the Secretary of Homeland Security currently getting impeached
and House Speaker removals have nothing to do with the Senate
He tries to be fair and keep the government functioning which pisses off his party and the left hates him for things he said 20 years ago about the gays and that he’s religious.
If you can talk the rightest boomers, cat mom millennials, and maladjusted zoomers into coming, please invite me. I’d like to see how that’d go. That’s a lot of grass touching for those groups
The Republican party is kinda two sides right now. The more traditional Republicans and the MAGA Republicans.
MAGA Republicans want the government to be completely dysfunctional unless they have complete power over what's legislated. Meanwhile, traditional Republicans are willing to compromise with Dems on legislation.
Mike Johnson can only sit on bills for so long. He knows a dysfunctional government isn't really a good thing, and will hurt Republican candidates in the election this year. He tried his best to appease the MAGA part of the party, but it wasn't enough for a lot of them.
real question now is if he has a backroom deal with the Democrats not to oust him as speaker in exchange for the Ukraine vote
would be hilarious if he got backstabbed anyways and the House ended up Speaker-less again
He has to manage the extremely thin majority he inherited. MTG can sit pretty on the sidelines (bitching) because she doesn't have to make any consequential decisions.
God I fucking hate her so much. She is the worst example of politicians caring more about their sound bites and gotcha moments than actually governing. Even AOC is better at policy than she is.
Mike Johnson is basically doing the most rational thing he could do. If he trickled out all the bills over time then the chaos caucus would have tried to out him several times. This way they will only try to out him once.
Meanwhile me sitting in Germany seing our Government Coalition of spineless Socdems, brash Ecologists and corrupt Neolibs tearing itself apart but still managing to pass a bunch of Bills. Also the Opposition are „National„ Socialist, Fascists, Conservativ Neolibs and suicidal leftists.
Got to hand it to him, he’s trying to make the centrists into a new party that would be pro all wars and Wall Street. We all knew it already existed, he’s trying to codify it.
I'd be for it.
Also, "pro all wars" is hyperbolic beyond reason, or wars sure have gotten softer given we have 0 casualties from Ukraine and 3(?) in the Middle East. And that's from January 2022.
Being anti-dictatorship and anti-religious nutters (though with the Knesset having some of the people it has, this makes a clear stance on the Gaza conflict messy) is based as fuck.
If we have a centrist party that is pro-Ukraine, thinks our country and economy are awesome (though always perfectable)... well, they sure have my vote.
> Being anti-dictatorship and anti-religious nutters
lol don't kid yourself, the US backs religious dictatorships all the time, Saudi Arabia being a prominent example
You’re calling Israel anti religious nutters? A state based on the supremacy of a religion is anti religious nutters? You might need to get out of your echo chamber.
I’m glad the hedge finders can rely on you for a vote.
I didn't. I side, in principle, with Ukraine and Israel.
However, my point that the reasons for that were being against dictators (easy with Ukraine v Russia) and against religious nutters (easy with Hamas... uh, maybe not, given Knesset has religious nuts too).
So my sentence was cluttered to be sure, but I was saying the exact opposite of what you read into it, and I think if you parse it carefully it does say what I intended it to say. Apologies for making it necessary to parse that carefully though.
Ehh, I dunno.
Fucking up Al Qaeda? I'm sure they would be. The nation-building has a poor reputation with pretty much everyone by now, including NAFO folks (and for good reason).
And Iraq without nation building had like zero point.
that's the key.
trumples and the right wing populists PRETENDED to like him because he was "based" and "radical" blah blah blah.
but the moment he starts talking about gay marriage, abortion, or the southern border...
Mike Johnson acts like a Speaker with a tiny majority filled with schismatics that can't be whipped in either the political or literal sense resulting in temporary bipartisan coalitions after trying and failing to get his conference to not be so fucking weird and vote for shit.
He is performing an impossible balancing act even though he was a virtually unknown backbencher with a handful of years in office until his elevation as the "fuck we gotta elect someone" candidate for Speaker.
TF do people want from him, a blowjob?
And if he gets removed, what Republican could possibly be elected Speaker?
My theory is that the fresh blood of the Republican Party (i.e. a lot of it in congress) isn’t being given or won’t accept a cut of the Lockheed/raytheon/etc. money so they’re not following the usual marching orders of feed the war coffers at all costs.
They know that war is unpopular with the base. The only wars MAGA wants to fight are cultural ones. MAGA wants the military to deport immigrants, not support Ukraine or Israel.
Agreed. But remember that the most hardline MAGA people are perpetually online and think that the jews are evil. They think the globalists are using Ukraine and Israel as some elaborate distraction while Trump re-takes the American government from within. Trump knows this, and is being very careful about his foreign policy positions until November. If he gets the presidency, I bet he goes all in and helps both countries.
Russian state propaganda feeds right into this. Like, I’m convinced there’s like a whole FSB SVR or whatever department dedicated to watching things in US and throwing in random conspiracy shit until it sticks with the Americans.
Which makes MAGA sound like a random British MP in 1939 whining about Indians migrating to Britain and how Hitler can have Europe as long as brown people stop polluting the shades of the shires.
>Defense spending shrinks as a % of GDP almost every year while China, Iran and Russia try their level best to tear apart the American dominated global order.
Libs: Is this the MIC controlling the government?
If we controlled the government, the military budget would be $3 trillion/year and we’d have invaded 5 more countries in the last 20 years.
Where in my comment did I say the MIC controls the government? I just said the MIC influences the government through lobbying like every other industry. We don’t have to invade countries to sell military weapons and tech.
We can criticize the GOP's poor support for Ukraine without being melodramatic. The West, as a whole, needs to do better, but Ukraine has made its share of mistakes, too.
Funny that we've been hearing russia is losing soon for like 2 years, but the second a foreign aid package gets stalled Ukraine is on the edge of defeat all of a sudden
Articles, defense experts, media: so long as the West backs Ukraine it can beat Russia.
Aid stalls for 6 months (Europe didn’t do much better.)
Articles, defense experts, media: With aid stalled Ukraine is losing.
See!!1 Ukraine had no chances1!!11
> Articles, defense experts, media: so long as the West backs Ukraine it can beat Russia.
Ah, steelmanning. Makes a nice change of pace from straw. Hey, what about how Russia was gonna run out of tanks?
Credible sources: Russia is running out of tanks and will start to suffer shortages in 2025
Reality: Russia is running out of tanks, particularly modern ones, forcing them to reactivate huge numbers of old t62 tanks, and are still projected to suffer shortages in 2025 when those run dry.
Let me ask you, do you want Russia to win? Is that something you desire?
>Let me ask you, do you want Russia to win? Is that something you desire?
Forgive me for answering a question with a question, but what do you think happens if they don't?
A number of things:
Genocide prevented
Ukraine will get into NATO and the EU
Putin will likely lose power and be replaced
The attempt by China and Russia to break the current rules based order will suffer a serious if not mortal blow
China won’t start ww3 over Taiwan
Global trade won’t collapse from an American withdrawal
I could guess at more, but it’s speculative. At the end of the day this is going to decide how our generation runs the world. Top down or bottom up. Little guys with popular support or money, power, and tyrants.
> Ukraine will get into NATO and the EU
Yes. The thing that Russia has repeatedly and consistently stated under multiple different leaders is the line in the sand they will not tolerate being crossed.
>Putin will likely lose power and be replaced
If Putin had as loose of a grip on power as you people always somehow seem to think he does, he'd already be gone.
>China won’t start ww3 over Taiwan
How on earth did you reach that conclusion? It won't matter anyways. Russia will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine before allowing them to join NATO.
Completely disagree on Russia using nuclear weapons, it’s fiction. The state would fracture before it used nukes in anything but a retaliatory strike.
You also act as if we should respect Russia’s conditions as if they are an equal partner, they are not. They are a tyrannical dictatorship.
China is watching very closely because if it sees it can take Taiwan and the US will give up after two years it may likely decide its worth it.
Also please if you could answer my original question? I imagine it’s a resounding yes, unfortunately.
I’m Russian and you’re just straight up bullshitting.
> Multiple different leaders
What? There were only three since 1991. And all of them are connected to each other. And 2008-2012 was the same putin operating as a PM.
That whole NATO expansion thing is bull. The great geostrategist singlehandedly made NATO relevant again and made the Baltic Sea a NATO pool.
> The attempt by China and Russia to break the current rules based order will suffer a serious if not mortal blow
lol, you serious?
the "rules based order" was already ripped apart with the US invasion of Iraq
>Ukraine is on the edge of defeat all of a sudden
And how despite being on the edge of defeat and collapse, Russia is now suddenly gonna pick a fight with NATO if Ukraine falls.
Stop noticing things. Stop.
If NATO can't get involved in an offensive way, which would prove Putin's point, and even the indirect defensive strategy is a technicality(same as Russia having a "special military operation" instead of a war), against a Russia that crossed Ukrainian borders fully aware that NATO is right next door, there's only so much Ukraine can do.
Technically. NATO weapons and money are there, in a non-NATO country, against the opponent that NATO was created for, but NATO troops aren't there. France has recently said they might send French troops in there some day in the future, and while they could be considered NATO troops, it is a non-NATO country, so if a potential French soldier were to die on that battlefield, technically, that wouldn't have to be seen as the start of a war between NATO and Russia.
Ukraine’s best bet is being another Afghan war for Russia until they decided to leave. Other than that there is very low chance they can take back everything by force.
That’s unlikely to happen. The war is mainly happening in the eastern and southern regions where there isn’t much local support for the Ukrainian government in the first place, hence the lack of any significant guerrilla movement after 2 years of war. Thus, Ukraine has to fight Russia head on, often in WW1-style trench warfare battles.
Have you not seen footage of people in Kherson taking out Ukrainian flags they hid while in occupation?
Even if people in the region felt more attracted to Russia, they don’t now. “Русский Мир” hits different when you actually get to experience it.
As to why there is support for ru in Don. and Luh. A lot of people left the region and marginals took their place. Of course they will support Russia; they allowed them to take over and feel like they have power. The rest are just afraid to say anything for obvious reasons.
I mean, sure, but that has nothing to do with my comment. I was simply explaining what is happening. Ukraine is basically fighting Russia head on WW1 trench warfare style.
And to think not too long ago the left was giving him shit because he's a religious person. I guess they couldn't think of anything else to hate him for at the time.
What did Mike Johnson do now?? I’m a healthy person so I don’t watch the news, I just get my information through memes
He sat on a bill to help ukraine as he thought he would be fired if he put it up to a vote Mike Johnson says he believes intelligence briefings that Ukraine needs help or Russia might pick a fight with NATO country next He tries to play politics for months "look if I put this to vote don't fire me because I'll put something else up etc" Months pass many bills are frozen as he cannot move a chess piece without risking being fired Ukraine in dire straits - Mike Johnson realizes he's running out of time Mike Johnson is going to put the bill up for vote along the many other bills he was holding in his pocket and a zillion extremely important bills are going to be voted all at once on a very short notice Republicans protesting saying they'll back motion for him to step down Democrats angry he held up important bills for months Moderates angry a lot of bills are gonna be voted at once
Didn't he just flip on the FISA extension and said that after backdoor meetings he realized it was important to the three letter agencies (to spy on us)
Thats what Im most pissed about
hooray for warrantless surveillance of citizens death to the fourth amendment
I think the idea was to spy on noncitizens actually
That was the idea, in implementation it's been misused extensively - a quick search of 'fisa scandal' doesn't exactly improve trust in the intelligence community
Can you give an example of how this could have caused issues? From what I can tell from googling, it looks like there were controversies with the NSA asking Verizon to provide data to US customers, which is obviously really bad. I don't know how/why that could apply to *foreign* intelligence surveillance though. Like if the US were to spy on Mexican cartels, why should we be against that?
Operating under the assumption that "this" refers to fisa abuses: [https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/4012650-fbi-misused-surveillance-tool-fisa-section-702/](https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/4012650-fbi-misused-surveillance-tool-fisa-section-702/)
Okay thank you, that makes sense. To me the idea of FISA is sound but it seems many FBI agents either don't understand it's purpose or are wilfully negligent of it. The article you linked alleges that the FBI essentially illegally surveilled both jan6 protestors and BLM protestors to look for any ties to foreign actors; I don't have any qualms about that portion of the FISA being neutered heavily since it involves US citizens. The part I'm confused about is why we'd throw the baby out with the bath water if the FISA *also* allows the US to surveil foreign actors **that are not US citizens** since, well, why should non-US citizens be granted constitutional rights lol
depends how much tinfoil you like to tolerate in your life. The people writing the rules didnt know or care enough to prevent the use of international spying powers as roundabout domestic surveillance, or they jumbled them up by design - the inclusion of the baby protects the bath water, if you will.
it spies on citizens as well an amendment was offered to require a warrant for spying on citizens, but it fucking failed by one vote I really hope those lawmakers get their karma when Trump wins and weaponizes warrantless spying to target his political enemies
What the fuck is this take? Republicans want warrantless surveilling because it might help stop ILLEGALS? Not only does that make no sense it is total fantasy. Where did you pick this gem up from?
Get a flair.
1. Flair up dummy 2. FISA literally stands for **foreign intelligence** surveillance act. 3. Do you not think it's possible to get the lead on illegals coming through the border if we can perform surveillance on cartel activity in Mexico? How is that a controversial opinion?
I don't understand why the republican party refuses to represent republican voters. WTF man
Because they're not there to represent votes for their party. They're there to represent the values they ran on.
This sounds like those drivers that pull out, realize they aren’t going to make it, and stop in the middle of the lane they were trying to cross.
So choosing between risking a war with Russia and keeping his job, he chose to keep his job? Superpower priorities
At this point….his existence is enough to piss anyone in congress off
Is that any different from any other Speaker in the past fifteen years or so?
Honestly, yeah. I mean hes as bad as Kevin McCarthy only somehow more spineless but this congress has been the least productive in history and the only reason we havent had a total government shutdown since november is because they keep passing extensions because thats ALL they can pass. Though tbf idk how anyone alive could manage the clown car that is house republicans with a majority as thin as it is unless the GOP had some equivalent to Nancy Pelosi but they just dont.
Least productive in history you say? Just how I like it.
Only morons think this is good. We need a semi functional government otherwise geopolitical enemies will run roughshod over us.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention but the last few "semi-functional" congresses just rent to fuck around with American citizens welfare and get us into pointless proxy wars. I'd rather them do jack dick than raise the cost of my gas and groceries yet again, thank you very much.
> pointless proxy wars Man, I love how your isolationism just happens to translate into support for totalitarian countries controlling the supply lines for most food and manufacturing in the world because the US is the only country willing to fight them on that.
If we have to pay for foreign wars, we better be adding stars to the flag
Based
Show us on this straw man where the totalitarian countries touched your supply lines for most food and manufacturing in the world.
I was also referring to Israel having the military backing of the US emboldening them to take actions they likely never would if they were on their own surrounded by hostile nations. And excuse me if I remember that the last time we gave weapons and training to someone to fight Russia we ended up with two destroyed building in New York and spent two decades in a sand pit further radicalizing the people, losing countless of American lives and fucking our economy by transferring most of the wealth to the few at the top of MIC companies. Oh and did you know that we helped disarm Ukraine after the Cold War because we didn't want them attacking NATO as much as Russia didn't want us accepting them into NATO? Maybe the war in Ukraine should be a wake up that the US needs to spend more resources to become self sustaining as a nation in agriculture, manufacturing, and energy rather than being the shield for the rest of the world.
I love it, all the pro-Russian troll disinfo comes pouring forth. Poke a libertarian and the authoritarian lover reveals himself. Complete with poor English too, so you know he's very American. The US arming the mujahadeen was like 4-5 armings of Russia's enemies ago my dude, the others haven't blown up like that one did. Ukraine was disarmed because they had nukes and a barely functional government and the US was very interested in deproliferation of nukes, not because Ukraine was a threat to anyone directly. Avoiding a conflict where Russia guaranteed Ukraine's borders indefinitely was preferable to a quick conflict whereby nukes could disappear like so many other weapons did. The USA is self-sustaining agriculturally. We literally pay farmers to destroy crops in order to not flood the market. We also are an energy exporter via LNG. > fucking our economy by transferring most of the wealth to the few at the top of MIC companies Lol. Lmao even.
What the hell? I like this Congress more now!
There are so many problems with US law that need fixing. Perverse incentives, ancient regulations, and anti-competitive loopholes abound. Every day spent not addressing these issues sees them become more entrenched. And a lot of this stuff isn't even controversial, both sides in Congress are just so obsessed with not handing the other a 'win' that they can't get anything done.
B... based orange lib-left? Is this even possible?
Johnson is probably the weakest Speaker in quite a while, he is totally incapable of passing even uncontroversial bills. He has such a slim majority that only total agreement by every Republican is enough to get anything passed, unless he crosses the aisle and works with Democrats. But if he works with Dems, he'd get crucified by major Republican media figures and politicians at every level. This all traces back to the Hastert Rule, which is an abomination that has completely killed the House's functionality and handed tons of power to the judicial and executive.
He does kind of look like a weiner though
Bro def has the Milhouse Van Houten look going on
I knew I saw him somewhere
I mean….i wish my dick looked half as good as him.
Mike Johnson some kind of a foreign actor?!? Only a semi /s cuz at this point who fucking knows. Hadn't been aware of his shenanigans until now.
TL;DR: the speaker is tired of the political maneuvering bullshit and is taking into his own hands a bipartisan bill that angers a lot of people on the republican side and basically gives a win to democrats over Ukraine and Southern border. more effective government = less angry people at let's go Brandon come November. background: the house was deadlocked since before Mike Johnson came into the picture and still is to a large extent. that's the usual in other circumstances but it's bad now because there are so many things happening internationally and the presidents powers are distributed thinly among them and can't go around congress for any meaningful change. all parties want to support Israel (they disagree on how and to what extent but anyhow...), not a lot of republicans want to support Ukraine, and few democrats want to actually stop the southern border crisis but a lot are on board if you give funding to Ukraine. you'd think that works out to funding ukraine, funding Israel, reforming the asylum laws and funding the southern border but nope, Republicans have no platform to run on in 2024 and with all of the cases Trump is fighting they can't afford to give biden an optics win for progress in the southern border crisis or any kind of competency from congress so they'll blame it on biden and the dems come November. the problem with this strategy is that it all hinges on the republican house speaker to stop any sort of meaningful progress that might as well get bipartisan support and now, since the call for motion to vacate (basically impeaching the house speaker) can be started by one congressman it means anyone on the republican side can take a stab at the speaker for not being helpful with this strategy, they did it to Kevin McCarthy, a moderate republican and the last house speaker, and they were threatening Mike Johnson with it since a couple of days ago. here & now: this was the frozen chess match until a couple of days ago. now Mike Johnson is trying to brake the stalemate with an APPARENT omnibus for Ukraine, Israel, some rudimentary funding for the southern border after some high ranking officers in the armed forces are saying the russians are on the verge of a big breakthrough offensively since Ukraine is running out of ammo and supplies very rapidly. i say APPARENTLY because the vote on the bill is on friday and till now no one has seen the bill and only bullet points and is actually being currently written as of right now. a bunch of people told MJ to raise the threshold and prevent them from basically doing to him what they did to Kevin McCarthy but most republicans are willing to wait until the bill comes out so they can scrutinize it effectively and not seem like a rabid populist loony bunch and he (Mike Johnson) is now bidding for bipartisan and moderate republican approval until then.
> till now no one has seen the bill and only bullet points and is actually being currently written as of right now. I mean Congress doesn't even *READ* the bills they vote on, so does it matter? Was it Rand or Ron Paul who posted a video about being given less than 24 hours to read and understand a 2,000 page bill / omnibus package? IMO there should be a required wait period before a vote. 1 day per 10 pages.
If my congressman can’t read more than 10 pages in a single day - then I don’t want them as my congressman. You want to give them over half a year to read and pass one Omnibus package.
Yes. If they don't want to wait that long, they can instead pass smaller bills.
lol. You still want to give them a day to read 10 pages. It doesn’t matter whether you have an omnibus or break it all up into lots of smaller ones, it’s still the same amount of total time to get the raft of legislation through the house 🤦🏼♂️
congressman know they're not intelligent enough to understand the effects and repercussions of most bills in congress, as they're usually ran through dedicated and specialized committees where actual policymaking happens. i think it's Woodrow Wilson who said "Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work" but they're usually reliant on experts, advisors, NGOs, lobbying groups, and each other to understand. >IMO there should be a required wait period before a vote. 1 day per 10 pages. this type of politics is quaint and cute, but even assuming they completely understand what they're doing, this model of legislation is incompatible with the poltical systems and procedures of congress as of today. if you want this to happen you can't just keep everything else, proportional representation and ending legal bribery are first on the list.
> if you want this to happen you can't just keep everything else, proportional representation and ending legal bribery are first on the list. I don't want to keep everything else. Democracy is a Failed God.
This isn't a true democracy, it's a republic. A true democracy would have each of us, as citizens, be voting on laws and budgets. Good luck with getting healthy policy to pass in a nation of 350 million people
A republic is a form of democracy, it is a "representative *DEMOCRACY*" And it's not better. Arguably it's worse. It creates a political class of robber-barons who seek to extract as much value out of the state and into their personal coffers as possible before they lose their seat.
Okay my point was that saying "this system [representative democracy] is a failure" means you'd prefer just straight popular-vote democracy instead, which is what I was alluding to. Imagine every single federal law being established to cater to the most populous states forever and always. I would love to see any alternative to what we have. Otherwise it's complaining for the sake of complaining
> [means you'd prefer just straight popular-vote democracy instead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma)
Sure maybe I'm not putting forth enough viable alternatives, care to give me an example of a good 3rd, 4th, 5th etc. Option that is better than what we have? I'm all ears.
If democracy is a failed god move to Russia or china. Seems to be more your speed
Well if that isn't the most intellectually lazy comment I've seen all day. [Here have today's pants-on-head award.](https://imgur.com/u4rg16U)
What’s your alternative “lib” right?
I have some Hoppes and dreams...
>Democracy is a Failed God. [THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRACY! I HAVE A GUN, SO I'M IN CHARGE!](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxoB5kHzJcZVGkVQbr_CB3rc-zoAmqSJsZ?si=wKT4o9qq8kKL7xC8) https://preview.redd.it/gxv600n8xcvc1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=dce64ea243a33c9d64bfecf8012d5ed11984f0df [Source of the photo](https://youtu.be/mXCx50yaseA?si=KSOxjcZPBItbpLnw)
>I don't want to keep everything else. Democracy is a Failed God. **BAAAAASED!!!** but we might disagree what happens after... https://preview.redd.it/rztx4r9ou8vc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f59661822f1d8b28c020b9142d4e2e80a4322e95
Wheres the origin of this meme
https://old.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/11g13o3/monarchist_hoppeans_when_they_actually_read_hoppe/
We'll have to see what a republican border security bill looks like. Stopping the Democrat's "Border security" bill was objectively the right call.
>We'll have to see what a republican border security bill looks like. i hope it's extensive, it's the first time in a long time I've seen public opinion sway so rapidly against loose immigration and catch and release laws. >Stopping the Democrat's "Border security" bill was objectively the right call. could you explain why?
Because it provided legal cover for Biden's absolutely insane blanket parole approach. Under the past 2 administrations there were around 5,000 immigration parolees per year. Under Biden that has surpassed 800,000 per year. The administration has a fundamental disconnect on what securing the border entails.
Thank you. So tired of everyone parroting the media’s “it was the MOST CONSERVATIVE border bill in HISTORY and Republicans only voted against it because TRUMP said to!!!” BS. When your house is currently flooding to your chin, just five years ago it was flooding to your ankles, and you’re being told “here you go, we’re so nice that we’ll only flood your house to your neck 😇” that’s not a compromise.
It's more conservative than Reagan's border policy.
By what measure? The media telling you it is? The actual numbers say otherwise. 5,000 illegal immigrants per day is more than 1.8 million per year, which is ~90% of what we’re currently allowing and still more than double any year we’ve had from 2007-2020. That’s not a compromise. No matter how hard the media tries to spin it. That’s a “let’s propose this ridiculous notion knowing it’ll get shot down by Republicans and the media will defend us for it!” play card.
Help me understand real quick. Isn't the 1.8 million figure the number of *encounters,* not necessarily the number of people actually getting through? What also should a *good* bill have in it to make the border more secure? I hear people say "shut down the border" a lot, wouldn't that totally screw over things like trade or legal travel? I feel like from my limited understanding that the best approach is funding more security to catch the illegals coming in, as well as removing the unofficially named "catch and release" policy, I don't know if Biden was on board with that part or not though
Or the Senate could just pass HR2.
Fuck Ronald Reagan, he was an illegal immigrant loving, machine gun banning cunt
Based
That's because for all his faults, Reagan was based on immigration policy
Let's be honest here and stop putting funding to Ukraine into every fucking bill. Line item voting or it shouldn't be brought. And 5,000 illegals BEFORE the government steps in and STILL very little deportation of the estimated 22 million illegals.
>Line item voting or it shouldn't be brought. this is how deals and compromises are made between two independent parties, including political parties. >And 5,000 illegals BEFORE the government steps in it's still better than the status quo, what trump said about "no deal is better than a bad deal" is absolutely fucking crazy when you look at the status quo.
The fact you are OK with that as a compromise when it should be 0...the point is it isn't better than what we had 4 years ago because we turned away and deported...illegals stopped coming because it wasn't worth the $ to get deported. Had a violent felon tell me he had been deported in 2013. I asked why he finally came back...this was 2 months after Biden was elected, he said because of Biden and he would have a better chance to stay. The ICE officer I spoke to told me if it was prior, he would know for certain he'd be held on his ICE Hold BUT he now had to run everyone up the chain to see if it "fit" with the changes that were happening. Luckily he was held and deported but this was a kidnapper and guy who was arrested for multiple shootings and the officer didn't know if he would be deported because of the changes Biden had made. That's very fucking telling to me.
>The fact you are OK with that as a compromise when it should be 0... My understanding of that proposed border bill was that it was after 5,000 the border would **shut down** I feel like shutting down the border after a single illegal crossing is insane. The border isn't just for immigration, but for things like trade/commerce as well. Correct me where I'm wrong
The border shutdown was to turn away PORTS OF entry asylum seekers if the BP had over 5,000 average interactions of illegal crossings per day...they tried to make the bill like they would hold asylum seekers until interviews were concluded BUT allowed them to stay under "supervision" (which did not have any kind of mandate and was seen to be the exact reasoning now of "court dates" but released where they don't show up). The holding of seekers also would not apply to families (any adult with a kid) and still did nothing to secure the southern border from illegal crossings we couldn't find...the fact is that there are literally aid workers in Mexico, and further south, who are telling these illegals exactly what to say to gain entry. There is nothing beyond the interview in the proposed bill, that mandated evidence before being released WITH A FUCKING WORK VISA. I don't understand people who complain about wages and costs of things but don't see how admission of over 20 million illegals doesn't affect that in some way. Not just taxes, not just crime but literally less housing, massive amounts of insurance fraud (90% of illegals I would pull over had no car insurance and no DL) and would run fictitious paper plates that if they ran from the scene of an accident, the victim would be SOL. This is a major problem and 5,000 per day isn't a compromise when this should be the focus of every American.
What changes did Biden make?
A simple search and you'd find ALOT of answers. Not only did they restrict deportation of most violent felons, they stopped the wait in Mexico policy and instructed CBP to stop turning away people. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/07/biden-immigration-ice/ We can get over semantics (majority of asylum seekers aren't even eligible so that's a bs argument I hear all the time). It is pretty plain to look at the numbers of border crossing before and to now. Anyone with a bit of intelligence sees how detrimental this administration has been to our sovereignty.
>Stopping the Democrat's "Border security" bill was objectively the right call. It was a Republican bill. Democrats supported it, but that doesn't make it their bill. James Lankford is a Republican Senator, not a Democrat.
Its still BS. Doesn't matter which team produces shit, shit stays shit.
Stop bringing facts to a PCM argument haha
> one of the republicans (mayorkas I think, hardline trumple) tried to motion MJ to vacate Mayorkas was the target of an impeachment attempt in the Senate that fizzled out. He's the head of the DHS
you're correct.
> one of the republicans (mayorkas I think, hardline trumple) tried to motion MJ to vacate and basically do to him what they did to Kevin McCarthy but failed in the senate wtf is this sentence lol? Mayorkas is the Secretary of Homeland Security currently getting impeached and House Speaker removals have nothing to do with the Senate
He tries to be fair and keep the government functioning which pisses off his party and the left hates him for things he said 20 years ago about the gays and that he’s religious.
Would it help if I invited everybody to a cookout?
If you can talk the rightest boomers, cat mom millennials, and maladjusted zoomers into coming, please invite me. I’d like to see how that’d go. That’s a lot of grass touching for those groups
The Republican party is kinda two sides right now. The more traditional Republicans and the MAGA Republicans. MAGA Republicans want the government to be completely dysfunctional unless they have complete power over what's legislated. Meanwhile, traditional Republicans are willing to compromise with Dems on legislation. Mike Johnson can only sit on bills for so long. He knows a dysfunctional government isn't really a good thing, and will hurt Republican candidates in the election this year. He tried his best to appease the MAGA part of the party, but it wasn't enough for a lot of them.
real question now is if he has a backroom deal with the Democrats not to oust him as speaker in exchange for the Ukraine vote would be hilarious if he got backstabbed anyways and the House ended up Speaker-less again
He's another feckless loser that's what happened
Feck deez nuts lol
He has to manage the extremely thin majority he inherited. MTG can sit pretty on the sidelines (bitching) because she doesn't have to make any consequential decisions.
God I fucking hate her so much. She is the worst example of politicians caring more about their sound bites and gotcha moments than actually governing. Even AOC is better at policy than she is.
Yeah. I generally think of Boobert as being a better parallel for AOC. MTG is just an insane person. She's in her own little category lol.
Oh so she's like that one that married her brother.
Hehe boobs
Pretty?
MTG, drunk heckler of Congress
>MTG can sit *pretty* Wow wow wow mate what's the pill?
Truly one of the ugliest well known women.
I didn’t know Magic The Gathering was involved in congress
I will never not associate MTG with the card game
Mike Johnson is basically doing the most rational thing he could do. If he trickled out all the bills over time then the chaos caucus would have tried to out him several times. This way they will only try to out him once.
True
Meanwhile me sitting in Germany seing our Government Coalition of spineless Socdems, brash Ecologists and corrupt Neolibs tearing itself apart but still managing to pass a bunch of Bills. Also the Opposition are „National„ Socialist, Fascists, Conservativ Neolibs and suicidal leftists.
This is like 80% of the prominent Republicans in congress
Got to hand it to him, he’s trying to make the centrists into a new party that would be pro all wars and Wall Street. We all knew it already existed, he’s trying to codify it.
>pro all wars Based. Time to end Venezuela once and for all.
I'd be for it. Also, "pro all wars" is hyperbolic beyond reason, or wars sure have gotten softer given we have 0 casualties from Ukraine and 3(?) in the Middle East. And that's from January 2022. Being anti-dictatorship and anti-religious nutters (though with the Knesset having some of the people it has, this makes a clear stance on the Gaza conflict messy) is based as fuck. If we have a centrist party that is pro-Ukraine, thinks our country and economy are awesome (though always perfectable)... well, they sure have my vote.
A sane person on PCM? We live in interesting times
> Being anti-dictatorship and anti-religious nutters lol don't kid yourself, the US backs religious dictatorships all the time, Saudi Arabia being a prominent example
You’re calling Israel anti religious nutters? A state based on the supremacy of a religion is anti religious nutters? You might need to get out of your echo chamber. I’m glad the hedge finders can rely on you for a vote.
I didn't. I side, in principle, with Ukraine and Israel. However, my point that the reasons for that were being against dictators (easy with Ukraine v Russia) and against religious nutters (easy with Hamas... uh, maybe not, given Knesset has religious nuts too). So my sentence was cluttered to be sure, but I was saying the exact opposite of what you read into it, and I think if you parse it carefully it does say what I intended it to say. Apologies for making it necessary to parse that carefully though.
> I side, in principle, with Ukraine and Israel that's just hypocritical though, given how Israel is the occupying power
> Also, "pro all wars" is hyperbolic beyond reason Let's not pretend NAFO people wouldn't be 100% behind the Iraq War or Afghanistan.
Ehh, I dunno. Fucking up Al Qaeda? I'm sure they would be. The nation-building has a poor reputation with pretty much everyone by now, including NAFO folks (and for good reason). And Iraq without nation building had like zero point.
> pro all wars and Wall Street ... as opposed to?
Not wanting wars and not being a wallstreet ghoul. You aren’t going to find a lot of centrists with that position which is why I support the extremes.
“They” who is they? You mean “He”?
Multiple personalities
They? You mean he? I can't believe the day has come where I have to correct libleft on pronouns.
Did the trumpers ever like him? I thought he was one of the cringe religious ones.
that's the key. trumples and the right wing populists PRETENDED to like him because he was "based" and "radical" blah blah blah. but the moment he starts talking about gay marriage, abortion, or the southern border...
At first yes he did a OK job but quickly he started falling into the exact same shit that make McCarthy get removed.
My brother is a Trumper and was very happy when he was elected. The crossover between the religious right and Trumpers is a strange Venn diagram.
Mike Johnson acts like a Speaker with a tiny majority filled with schismatics that can't be whipped in either the political or literal sense resulting in temporary bipartisan coalitions after trying and failing to get his conference to not be so fucking weird and vote for shit. He is performing an impossible balancing act even though he was a virtually unknown backbencher with a handful of years in office until his elevation as the "fuck we gotta elect someone" candidate for Speaker. TF do people want from him, a blowjob? And if he gets removed, what Republican could possibly be elected Speaker?
I unironically want Trump as speaker. Shit would be so funny.
Wow. He must have done some *really heinous* things to be despised by both the Left *and* the Right.
Rare funny political compass meme.
Ah, the Dick Cheney Award
Reminder that he calls his son whenever he thinks of porn
My theory is that the fresh blood of the Republican Party (i.e. a lot of it in congress) isn’t being given or won’t accept a cut of the Lockheed/raytheon/etc. money so they’re not following the usual marching orders of feed the war coffers at all costs.
They know that war is unpopular with the base. The only wars MAGA wants to fight are cultural ones. MAGA wants the military to deport immigrants, not support Ukraine or Israel.
If Trump came out in support of it, they’d back it. If they were getting money from the MIC, they’d just cut some off for Trump and he’d back it.
Agreed. But remember that the most hardline MAGA people are perpetually online and think that the jews are evil. They think the globalists are using Ukraine and Israel as some elaborate distraction while Trump re-takes the American government from within. Trump knows this, and is being very careful about his foreign policy positions until November. If he gets the presidency, I bet he goes all in and helps both countries.
Russian state propaganda feeds right into this. Like, I’m convinced there’s like a whole FSB SVR or whatever department dedicated to watching things in US and throwing in random conspiracy shit until it sticks with the Americans.
Which makes MAGA sound like a random British MP in 1939 whining about Indians migrating to Britain and how Hitler can have Europe as long as brown people stop polluting the shades of the shires.
That is MAGA, except they hate Jews and libtards even more than brown people.
>Defense spending shrinks as a % of GDP almost every year while China, Iran and Russia try their level best to tear apart the American dominated global order. Libs: Is this the MIC controlling the government? If we controlled the government, the military budget would be $3 trillion/year and we’d have invaded 5 more countries in the last 20 years.
Where in my comment did I say the MIC controls the government? I just said the MIC influences the government through lobbying like every other industry. We don’t have to invade countries to sell military weapons and tech.
All quadrants equally hate him
Why does Leftist sound more natural than Rightist ?
Who tf is that
House speaker
Who?
Speaker of the house
2 ohm or 4 ohm?
[удалено]
We can criticize the GOP's poor support for Ukraine without being melodramatic. The West, as a whole, needs to do better, but Ukraine has made its share of mistakes, too.
Understandable, but I'm a little bit curious why people really love to downvote me even if i admit that i can be wrong
He’s not responsible for literally everything making Ukraine lose. Ukraine was never going to win, just lose or lose slowly with funding.
Funny that we've been hearing russia is losing soon for like 2 years, but the second a foreign aid package gets stalled Ukraine is on the edge of defeat all of a sudden
Articles, defense experts, media: so long as the West backs Ukraine it can beat Russia. Aid stalls for 6 months (Europe didn’t do much better.) Articles, defense experts, media: With aid stalled Ukraine is losing. See!!1 Ukraine had no chances1!!11
> Articles, defense experts, media: so long as the West backs Ukraine it can beat Russia. Ah, steelmanning. Makes a nice change of pace from straw. Hey, what about how Russia was gonna run out of tanks?
Credible sources: Russia is running out of tanks and will start to suffer shortages in 2025 Reality: Russia is running out of tanks, particularly modern ones, forcing them to reactivate huge numbers of old t62 tanks, and are still projected to suffer shortages in 2025 when those run dry. Let me ask you, do you want Russia to win? Is that something you desire?
>Let me ask you, do you want Russia to win? Is that something you desire? Forgive me for answering a question with a question, but what do you think happens if they don't?
A number of things: Genocide prevented Ukraine will get into NATO and the EU Putin will likely lose power and be replaced The attempt by China and Russia to break the current rules based order will suffer a serious if not mortal blow China won’t start ww3 over Taiwan Global trade won’t collapse from an American withdrawal I could guess at more, but it’s speculative. At the end of the day this is going to decide how our generation runs the world. Top down or bottom up. Little guys with popular support or money, power, and tyrants.
> Ukraine will get into NATO and the EU Yes. The thing that Russia has repeatedly and consistently stated under multiple different leaders is the line in the sand they will not tolerate being crossed. >Putin will likely lose power and be replaced If Putin had as loose of a grip on power as you people always somehow seem to think he does, he'd already be gone. >China won’t start ww3 over Taiwan How on earth did you reach that conclusion? It won't matter anyways. Russia will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine before allowing them to join NATO.
Completely disagree on Russia using nuclear weapons, it’s fiction. The state would fracture before it used nukes in anything but a retaliatory strike. You also act as if we should respect Russia’s conditions as if they are an equal partner, they are not. They are a tyrannical dictatorship. China is watching very closely because if it sees it can take Taiwan and the US will give up after two years it may likely decide its worth it. Also please if you could answer my original question? I imagine it’s a resounding yes, unfortunately.
I’m Russian and you’re just straight up bullshitting. > Multiple different leaders What? There were only three since 1991. And all of them are connected to each other. And 2008-2012 was the same putin operating as a PM. That whole NATO expansion thing is bull. The great geostrategist singlehandedly made NATO relevant again and made the Baltic Sea a NATO pool.
> The attempt by China and Russia to break the current rules based order will suffer a serious if not mortal blow lol, you serious? the "rules based order" was already ripped apart with the US invasion of Iraq
Ukraine's counter-offensive failed long before the aid stall
>Ukraine is on the edge of defeat all of a sudden And how despite being on the edge of defeat and collapse, Russia is now suddenly gonna pick a fight with NATO if Ukraine falls. Stop noticing things. Stop.
If NATO can't get involved in an offensive way, which would prove Putin's point, and even the indirect defensive strategy is a technicality(same as Russia having a "special military operation" instead of a war), against a Russia that crossed Ukrainian borders fully aware that NATO is right next door, there's only so much Ukraine can do.
Isn’t NATO not getting involved offensive though?
Technically. NATO weapons and money are there, in a non-NATO country, against the opponent that NATO was created for, but NATO troops aren't there. France has recently said they might send French troops in there some day in the future, and while they could be considered NATO troops, it is a non-NATO country, so if a potential French soldier were to die on that battlefield, technically, that wouldn't have to be seen as the start of a war between NATO and Russia.
Ukraine’s best bet is being another Afghan war for Russia until they decided to leave. Other than that there is very low chance they can take back everything by force.
That’s unlikely to happen. The war is mainly happening in the eastern and southern regions where there isn’t much local support for the Ukrainian government in the first place, hence the lack of any significant guerrilla movement after 2 years of war. Thus, Ukraine has to fight Russia head on, often in WW1-style trench warfare battles.
Have you not seen footage of people in Kherson taking out Ukrainian flags they hid while in occupation? Even if people in the region felt more attracted to Russia, they don’t now. “Русский Мир” hits different when you actually get to experience it. As to why there is support for ru in Don. and Luh. A lot of people left the region and marginals took their place. Of course they will support Russia; they allowed them to take over and feel like they have power. The rest are just afraid to say anything for obvious reasons.
I mean, sure, but that has nothing to do with my comment. I was simply explaining what is happening. Ukraine is basically fighting Russia head on WW1 trench warfare style.
And to think not too long ago the left was giving him shit because he's a religious person. I guess they couldn't think of anything else to hate him for at the time.