#Defund the Ukraine

[godisarepublican]

[mastermark1960]

We need to stop spending money we don't have. A good place to start is with foreign aid. The only country we should help is Isreal. They are surrounded by the true enemy of western civilization.

[godisarepublican]

We all are!

[godisarepublican]

[godisarepublican]

My "Argument," and it's really just a statement of fact here, is that it's not our war. We made promises to the government of the Ukraine, that government was overthrown by a fascist coup. There. Done. Our obligation is over. So I don't care how "Just" the war is or how "Right" the Ukrainians are, it's not our war. And if Europe wants to fight it, let Europe fight it but don't involve us.

P.S. Ever seen any Facebook or mainstream media "Fact Checking?" Well. A Ukrainian "Fact Check" site just recently "Fact Checked" the claim that they, the Ukrainians, were behind the Trump assassination attempt and we all know "Fact Checkers" can't lie. That is why they call them "Fact Checkers," right?

Doesn't matter. Even if someone wants to pretend that we're supposed to care about the Ukraine's war, it all needed to end after Zelensky launched his very first terrorist attack in a Russian city, or conducted his first assassination... all happened BEFORE he cancelled elections!

Might also help his case if we created religious freedoms and freedom of the press, but that's probably asking too much...

[contemplatingoutlander]

“This is an awesome decision by Trump!... We couldn’t shut them down, unfortunately, but America did so itself."*

—Margarita Simonya, "editor of Russia’s RT network," on the U.S. defunding "Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)," as reported by France 24

If this article doesn't prove that Trump is a (witting or unwitting) Russian asset, I don't know what will.

This is a gift 🎁 link, so there is no paywall. Below are some excerpts from this excellent news analysis by the NY Times' Peter Baker.

If President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia drafted a shopping list of what he wanted from Washington, it would be hard to beat what he was offered in the first 100 days of President Trump’s new term. Pressure on Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia? Check. The promise of sanctions relief? Check. Absolution from invading Ukraine? Check. Indeed, as Mr. Trump met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, the president’s vision for peace appeared notably one-sided, letting Russia keep the regions it had taken by force in violation of international law while forbidding Ukraine from ever joining NATO. But that is not all that Mr. Putin has gotten out of Mr. Trump’s return to power. Intentionally or not, many of the president’s actions on other fronts also suit Moscow’s interests, including the rifts he has opened with America’s traditional allies and the changes he has made to the U.S. government itself. Mr. Trump has been tearing down American institutions that have long aggravated Moscow, such as Voice of America and the National Endowment for Democracy. He has been disarming the nation in its netherworld battle against Russia by temporarily halting cyberoffensive operations and curbing programs to combat Russian disinformation, election interference, sanctions violations and war crimes. He spared Russia from the tariffs that he is imposing on imports from nearly every other nation, arguing that it was already under sanctions. Yet he still applied the tariff on Ukraine, the other party he is negotiating with. And in a reversal from his first term, Politico reported that Mr. Trump’s team is reportedly discussing whether to lift sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe, a project he has repeatedly condemned.

Despite his protests, Trump will always be: "The MOSCOVIAN Candidate."

______________________ * Although most of the Margarita Simonyan quote was in the NY Times article, I used the quote from a French 24 article instead. The information replaced by the ellipsis in the above quote was moved to the designated attribution area.

"The Moscovian Candidate" meme manipulated image sources: 01 (photo collage by Javier Zarracina/ Vox) +  02 + 03 + 04

[edited]

[scientistswishingwell]

Alright, since this is the world we live in now, I’m saying this out loud:

Black Lives Matter. Reproductive rights are human rights. Science is real. Climate change is real. The Covid pandemic is real. I stand with Palestine and Ukraine. Trans rights are human rights. Protect trans kids. Shelter refugees. Documentation assistance instead of deportation. Surrender your guns. Refuse to compromise. Do not equivocate. Make reparations.

There are just so many things under attack right now. I’m sure I missed stuff.

If they refuse to let me identify as my true self I will identify as a problem.

[whydidisavethistomyphone]

While everyone is distracted by the Super Bowl the US government are meeting to organise funding for the genocide in Palestine while Israel are carrying out their most intensive bombing campaign on the refugee camp they designated as a safe zone.

[godisarepublican]

his journalism "Hit List" was not limited to Ukrainian sources. They maintain a list of all "Enemies of the state" in Journalism. Which is funny, because it's not like real journalism even exists!

A lot of the "Aid" money appears to be coming back to buy pro fascists propaganda pieces, as well as suppressing anti Ukraine pieces. Yes, if you throw money at the media they'll "Report" whatever you want them to. And it's legal. They are under no legal obligation to "Report" the truth.

[tomorrowusa]

Policing in Russia has not exactly been great – and it's getting worse.

Russia has one of the largest police forces in the world, employing over 900,000 officers to serve a population of 146 million, according to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. It has nearly 630 officers per 100,000 people - more than double the US or the UK. But in August, Interior Ministry Chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev said the country had a "critical" shortage of police officers, which could affect crime rates. How can that be the case, given the sheer number of officers?

In real terms, Putin has defunded the police. You get what you pay for.

"They haven't adjusted the salary at all," a former officer from Rostov, in southwest Russia, said. "After inflation and the new prices, it's not enough." He quit to become a taxi driver. His friend, who was also a police officer, is now a courier. Both of them earn twice as much as they did as police officers. "I reached the rank of major (the equivalent to a sergeant in the UK). But still a person working at a supermarket earned more than me - hardly dangerous work. Only an idiot would join the police now," the former officer from Rostov said. [ ... ] As the number of officers drops, the pressures on those who remain increase. Former officers have told the BBC this is leading to corruption. "Officers are beating confessions out of people, inflating arrest quotas, we're seeing this all the time," says a police major from the Russian city of Tomsk. "It's only going to get worse. There will be falsification of evidence, targeted beatings, there just isn't going to be time to investigate anything properly. "You've got a lead and you need to chase it? Much simpler to drag the first suspect back to the station and beat him up, so he takes the blame."

The war in Ukraine, of course, is making things worse.

Initially, the war convinced some officers to stay in the force. Russian police officers are exempt from being called up for military duty, so some officers who were on the verge of resigning when Russia invaded Ukraine told us they kept their jobs to avoid fighting. [ ... ] But as the war rumbles on, police numbers are dwindling. The force cannot fill existing gaps - let alone recruit the 40,000 extra personnel that the Interior Ministry says is needed in Donetsk and Luhansk, areas of Ukraine that Russia partly occupies.

Russia needs more police for the areas it illegally annexed in Ukraine.

Russia predicts it will need another 42,000 officers by 2026 if it occupies further territories. For serving police officers, having an opinion about the war is simply not allowed. They are not even allowed to call it a war. "Officers must keep their mouths shut," one detective says. "We can't have personal views about the 'special military operation' - or they'll fire us." [ ... ] Interior Ministry officials from the three Russian cities of Tomsk, Yekaterinburg and Yaroslavl claim they now spend most of their time investigating and revising "endless charges against people discrediting the army". "People are always looking for an excuse to denounce someone," a former major from Tomsk says. "There's nobody around... Everyone's gone to check on some grandma who saw a curtain that looked like the Ukrainian flag.

It's like the Stalin era in Russia – people are denouncing each other for fun and profit. Every time somebody complains to the police about real or (more likely) imagined pro-Ukraine sympathies or criticism of the war, the cops need to open a new investigation which keeps them from doing more typical police work.

The police situation is yet another way Russia is rotting from within.

[filosofablogger]

What Day Is It??? I Was Confused! Have A 'Toon Instead!

Late last night, when I put this morning’s post on the schedule, I was exhausted from a day of unpacking, lifting heavy boxes, doing five loads of laundry, and cooking supper for the first time in our new home, and I didn’t even realize that today would be Wednesday!  Therefore, there was no ‘good people’ post this morning!  Mea culpa and to those who look forward to the good people posts, I…

[freedomrobot]

Open Letter from We, the People of the United States to the People of Russia  

Saturday, March 08, 2025 | 544 AM

Dear Friends and Neighbors of Russia,

[godisarepublican]

[gingerswagfreckles]

Things Donald Trump claimed tonight during the debate:

-The Liberals are executing babies after they're born (he said this about 15 times)

-Illegal immigrants are taking over entire buildings in NYC and killing the residents (in response to the question "is the economy better off than it was four years ago")

-Nancy Pelosi is the mayor of Washington (she is not the mayor of anywhere)

-Illegal immigrants are eating your pets and they will kidnap your cat and eat your cat if you vote for Kamala Harris

-Hungarian dictator Victor Orban is his good friend who claims that everyone "fears" Trump and this is a good thing

-He would end the war in Ukraine by getting Zelensky and Putin together and talking to them because they both respect him. And it would be over in 24 hours

-Kamala Harris has been "against defunding the police forever" and that's...bad? To Republicans? Suddenly?

-Illegal immigrants are flooding in to the country from "insane asylums," possibly confusing this with political asylum??

-Kamala Harris "puts out" (???)

-Biden has taken millions of dollars in bribes from Russia and China for reasons that he could not elaborate on

-Kamala Harris cooperated with the Taliban and gave them a bunch of money and "parts of our army"

-Kamala Harris is a Marxist

You heard it here first, folks! Don't let those nasty Liberals in the spin room confuse you!

[godisarepublican]

There can be no peace with Zelensky. He has to go. Elections must be held and Zelensky has to go.

It's time.

[eugenedebs1920]

Politicians lie to get your vote. They bend the truth. They may even knowingly make a false claim. The Trump administration is the complete distortion of objective reality.

I am perhaps a bit too informed on current events, particularly the fall of American democracy. So far in this second round of Trump, I’m not sure if I’ve heard a single word of truth from him, those around him, or his propaganda networks.

It had been nonstop lies, corruption and criminality. Seriously! Not a single ounce of truth.

First thing he did was pardon the Jan 6th insurrectionist, claiming they had been treated very badly. Many of them beat the crap out of capital police, they stormed the capital looking to sting up Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. They stole documents, smeared feces all over walls, and defiled our nation’s capital. Many deserved the sentence they received.

Second thing was to blame all of Americas problems on people with brown skin, gay people, trans people, anyone who wasn’t a straight white man. Even when his stupid ass transportation Secretary had the first air crash in over a decade, that was because of minorities somehow. Funny. Pete Buttigieg is gay and not a single plane crashed during his whole time as Transportation Secretary.

Trump brings in the world’s richest man to make government efficient. Yet the first thing he does is dismantle USAID, a program that was less than 1% of the U.S. budget and gave food and medicine to the poorest people across the globe. Think of it! The richest man on the planet, taking food from the most impoverished people on earth. It’s unbelievably messed up.

The guy who spent almost $300 million getting trump elected then starts rummaging through every aspect of the federal government where, ironically, he starts dismantling and picking apart agencies that were investigating his companies. CFPB and SEC were looking into his electronic currency for X, dissolved or defunded. The FDA was looking into the brain chips he was working on, defunded drastically. The FAA was bringing charges against spacex for the rocket explosions that posed numerous dangers, massive funding cuts. You hear very little about this on “legacy” media.

Trump betrays Ukraine, goes so far as to call Zelenskyy a dictator but praises Putin! He has Jerkin Dicks Vance make some ABSURD speech condoning AfT rhetoric and berating our allies, we vote against condemning Putin’s war crimes, along with countries like, North Korea, Belarus, Iran, and of course Russia. WTAF!? And maga is cool with this? We joined the damn axis of evil! The just shameful ambush of Zelenskyy in the White House, it’s one of those things you can’t unseee. Just disgraceful…

The immigration enforcement is fascist to the core! Whatever you think about a country of immigrants immigration policies, a country which committed genocide against the native inhabitants, that made its initial fortune on the backs of enslaved peoples, that nation should have learned 250 years later that all people deserve to be treated with dignity and minimum respect at least. The only lawyer who spoke the truth in court over the administrative error which sent a Maryland man to a supermax prison in El Salvador, got fired by the administration for telling the truth! Lawyers are bound by a code of ethics (believe it or not) and swear an oath to uphold the law.

The tariffs. My god the tariffs. In 100 days America went from the best economic recovery of all developed nations after covid, to the stock market tanking and the contraction of the economy as a whole. Lie after lie about this too. Not simply about inflation or Wall Street, but telling us not to believe our lying eyes and empty wallets with claims that prices are actually down. I CAN CLEARLY SEE THAT THEY AREN’T! How dumb do they think we are!?

Then there’s the full on assault to the first amendment. It’s funny because the right has been setting the precedent that liberals have been attacking the first amendment for years now. (a good way to predict what corruption Republicans are planning is to listen to what they are accusing others of. Promise! It works every time) Why!? Because your Facebook post on how ivermectin cures covid was disputed and taken down? Cry me a river. Trump has attempted to dictate what university professors can teach and the curriculum offered. He has sued law firms for defending causes in conflict with his. He has instituted Christian defense orders. Sued and threatened multiple press organizations. We haven’t even seen the response to an enormous protest in DC yet. June 14th. Be there…

There is not enough time in my life to go over every lie that Trump and his administration have perpetuated, but I can tell you this. The proposed budget, the funding cuts, the degradation of constitutional rights, the immigrant hate, the installation of HIGHLY UNQUALIFIED loyalists in intelligence and defense agencies, defying the courts, discrediting the press, politicizing religion, going after universities, eliminating the department of education, using the DOJ as a personal retribution law firm, military parades, accosting our allies, aligning with autocratic regimes, ignoring due process, creating an alternate reality void from facts or data, where nothing one sees is what they’re actually seeing, distorting what’s real, what’s true, what’s objective, and not backing down from that fabricated story.

I could go on.

These are the actions of a dictator. These are the doings of autocrats. What is playing out in front of our faces is the destruction of the American democratic representative constitutional republic, and the inception of a fascist state. It’s been 100 days people!! This much damage has already occurred.

I posed a question the other day that stuck in my mind. Is it that maga believes the lies that are told to them, does nearly half the country lack the critical thinking skills to see past the propaganda? Or is it that their disdain and animosity towards liberals is so great they simply don’t care? The hatred towards their fellow Americans for having opposing political views is so strong, that they’re willing to burn the whole thing down just to “own the libs”?

I can’t answer that with clarity, but either way….

It’s not good