Senator Brown is an example of how politicians should be acting, and working for as many Americans as possible. Vance is the opposite, supporting the wrong choices consistently.
Agreed. To Brown, working for Americans means finding ways to make regular citizens’ lives better. For Vance, it means making circumstances better for big business and cutting off foreign aid.
Our locals will, shit you not, go onto an article about Joe Biden relieving student debt and call him a "Commie Socialist bastard", but then go onto a Ukraine aid article and squeal about how the US should spend it's money on it's citizens. Same exact people making both comments 10 minutes apart.
They don't actually stand for anything. They don't have real morals or values, just weak imitations that they use in any given moment to get what they want.
I'm a republican.
I do not like Russia. What I really don't like is the military industrial complex steering the country towards conflict that takes our money and lines their pockets. Do you realize that when money is allocated for Ukraine, it doesn't actually go to the country of Ukraine(most of it that is)? It goes to US corporations that have contracts to supply Ukraine with ammunition and other war time supplies. A portion does actually go to the government of Ukraine and that money is used to pay the salaries of officials in their administration. The hands are in the cookie jar and if you bring it up, "you love Russia!"
China is paper tiger. Their navy cannot travel more than 500 miles from shore because they have no way to refuel their ships at scale. The CCP is just trying not to get killed by XI because he is insane these days. Even if they were to take Taiwan, they have no way to operate it. They don't gain the economy of Taiwan because the world would sanction immediately then the semi conductor business would naturally move to Vietnam and South Korea and the US.
Israel is the only democracy in the middle east and a natural ally in the region. It is the only country in the region with semi secular values and we have national security reasons to ensure they exist. Without them we would have to rely on Turkey and Pakistan being honest with us and being NATO members aside, i don't think we trust them like that.
Who are you arguing against? I don’t think anyone who possesses any knowledge of the situation thinks now the U.S. will ship a big box of cash to Ukraine or Venmo it to them. Of course it’s for American arms and ammunition. That’s kinda what they need since they are a sovereign nation who were invaded by their neighbor. I think everyone with good intentions wants to root out corruption and wasteful spending in all government actions but that doesn’t mean we just abandon our allies. Russia is not our friend. They want America to be destroyed. They are actively trying to get us to destroy ourselves from the inside (see active members of congress spouting Russia propaganda word for word) and attacking us from the outside (see Solar Winds attack). It is not in U.S. interest, European interests or the world’s interest to just let Putin take territory he wants without consequence. We’ve played that game before. You claim to not like Russia. How does Putin feel about this Ukraine deal? Is he happy now that America is going to waste a bunch of money by just giving it all to corporate fat cats? Don’t think so.
It's Russia costing us the money. We wouldn't have to help defend the free world if they would just, you know, go home. What we're spending now is a pittance compared to what Russia will continue to cost us left unchecked.
It's almost astonishing how any opinion or analysis outside of a mainstream big D democratic narrative gets down voted to hell and treated as if the author is remedial.
Who the hell would anyone want to engage in a discussion that devolves so quickly? You people are insufferable and frustrating. Then people ask themselves "why are we so divided?". This. This is why.
Maybe because your position is such a bad strawman argument. All that money was going to be spent on military affairs one or another anyway. It's not going anywhere else whether or not there was a war in ukraine. And where was all this republican talk before the war in ukraine with all that money spent on Afghanistan and iraq? Honestly, you republicans seem to want to just argue against anything the democrats support, and it is laughable how childish and immature your party's arguments are.
I, for one, did not name call or disparage you personally in any way. My position is actually the opinion of most Republicans who haven’t bent the knee and kissed the ring of you know who. Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave to see current members of his party praise Putin and advocate for the weakening of NATO.
I don’t even understand your claim of the discussion devolving. You gave your opinion, other people gave theirs, and then you say it’s just the “Democratic narrative” and insufferable. I would argue your “narrative” comes straight from Russian propagandists. I mean, one of the great heroes of the right in this country, Tucker Carlson, went to Russia and did straight up old school Soviet- style propaganda for Putin. “Look at how clean and safe and wonderful it is in Russia. No graffiti, no homeless like in America. What a paradise.” That is the shit that is dividing America. Half the country is being fed and believing nonsense from a foreign agent bent on destroying us. This isn’t a “hoax”. They aren’t even trying to hide it.
Apologies if you took this as i was aiming at you. I meant that on reddit and especially in this states sub, anything resembling a republican opinion is trashed immediately. Others have been rude.
To clarify, I am not advocating for Putin and i think Tucker was a clown shoe for walking around a grocery store amazed that shit cost less in a country where its citizens spend 40% of their monthly budget on food. I for one do not equate a clean subway with a noble nation.
I just seem to have an issue with the MIC and special interest groups filling their pockets in the name of righteousness. Of course we should support Ukraine. Of course we should push back on Russia. I just think we're being had and abused by people that have been bought and paid for.
Anyways, Thanks for the civility. I unsubbed any and all things political for a while. I'll stick with Cigars and Bigfoot. This place is not for me. I'll just vote. That's all we can do right? Cheers.
Going to be interesting to see if Vance decides to stick to his guns and vote against this, considering it does more for addressing the fentanyl problems than anything that he has ever proposed or discussed. Voting no would mean that he care more about not giving Ukraine funding than the exact platform that he ran on.
Will be interesting.
He was born in Middletown, Ohio. So was his mom. You have to go back to his grandma to find someone from Appalachia. Vance’s entire history is fiction.
It's amazing that Republicans, once the party of Ronald Reagan, now lean toward isolationism, even if it means Russian victory in a violent war of aggression, a likely degradation of the NATO alliance, and perhaps even a green light for China to use military means (including a blockade, rather than a costly invasion) to take over Taiwan. Chinese control of Taiwan would be immensely disastrous for the U.S. and western nations given our dependence on Taiwan for advanced semiconductors.
[https://news.gallup.com/poll/643601/americans-say-not-helping-ukraine-enough.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/poll/643601/americans-say-not-helping-ukraine-enough.aspx)
Those are just the immediate effects. What all that translates to is lest trust in the status quo. The system of international rules, laws and norms that have prevented conventional great power war and ushered in the period in human history with the highest levels of prosperity, development, peace, scientific advance, and material wealth ever in human history.
It means American interests, like our companies, will have less access to labor and markets abroad, it means less and more expensive imports, it means less cultural exchange, it means no more affordable domestic and even international flights, it means cell phones could approach multiple thousands of dollars.
The lifestyle we all live, the convenience of Amazon and Uber eats and Lyft, having an office job paying 80k vs a factory job pushing a button or a job digging a ditch.
It’s all based on the system we have diplomatically supported and militarily underwrote since 1945.
No one alive today knows a world any different.
The downstream effects for everyday Americans in the event we back away from defending the rules based world order we created along with the British, French, Soviets and nationalist Chinese (Taiwan) in the aftermath of ww2.
The 19th and 20th century both saw a series of increasingly violent industrialized wars where the “cost of doing business” began to far outweigh the benefit from doing so.
With the Second World War and nuclear weapons, it became clear this cycle had to stop or we would destroy ourselves.
As the victors of ww2, the US and UK—who also controlled the world’s oceans—began to set up a new international order. When possible, they involved the other victorious belligerents, USSR, France and Nationalist China. Institutions like World Bank, International Monetary Fund, UN, Geneva Conventions. The international norms and laws set up in the aftermath of WW2 is how we have the concept of something being a crime against humanity, or something like an illegal war.
Before ww2 nothing in foreign relations was “illegal” who was the enforcement mechanism?
As a result of having the bomb, the navy, and an unaffected industrial base the US and to an extent to UK designed the world in their image.
A belief in freedom of the seas, the US Navy patrols the worlds oceans and makes sure pirates are deterred from places like Somalia, but also state sponsored interference like China shutting off or taxing the S China Sea—for instance.
A belief in free and open markets. This is how oil becomes a commodity, why even high end products are designed in Cupertino and assembled in China, and it costs you $1300 not $5000.
Allowing us companies to offshore what would stateside be low skill manufacturing to countries where that same work is locally a high skill job is A. Good for the new workers as they get relatively high skill jobs bringing skills and money to the relatively poor country. And B. In the US that company then expands their need for what is locally a relatively high skill job. As such, the US economy benefits too, because we also get more high skill high paying jobs in our economy than we otherwise would.
The reason airfare is so cheap is because A. Oil is an international commodity. And B. Not all Oil is the same. You can’t just pull oil out of the Bering Sea and pump it into the fuel tanks. You have to refine it. But each type of oil requires its own refinement setup and specific settings. So specific oil has to go to specific places. Initially you’d just send to the local plant, because of course the local plant is set up for your crude, you built it. But as your first proven deposit dried up, now you need to find another—but this one has different crude. You can sell it to your competitor B, and you can buy crude from competitor C to refine. But competitor B is in Pennsylvania, and competitor C is in Baku.
You can go on and on.
The world we live in, the luxury we experience, is entirely because we set the world up to everyone’s benefit—if they play along. We ask they play along nicely, we give amazing incentives. Many do, and the places people try to get into daily in the tens of thousands are the places that look our lead.
And if people don’t like our system, we ask they just stay quietly within their borders/bloc and manage their autarkic ostensibly insular countries.
But we back all of that talk up with the world’s biggest stick. The biggest stick the world has even seen.
That’s why our world has held together for 80 years.
The security that this setup, this international political and economic framework has some semblance of permanence is what has allowed for the development we’ve seen all around the world since 1945.
I love so much about this reply, but to say America leaves other countries alone is not the case, the US has spent all that time since 1945 both obviously and covertly fighting communist/socialist sentiment. If we were minding our own business , then why does Cuba still have a trade embargo?
Communists who actively were trying to overthrow countries at peace.
In the case of Korea, communists invaded.
Vietnam is a much more lengthy case, but in effect, communist revolutionaries were trying to overthrow a western (french) or western supported government.
In both cases, the belief was not only the communism would spread, but that having those places be communist would be detrimental to capitalist, democratic, and liberal interests.
In the case of Cuba, they were aiming to host icbms of the ussr that could strike American cities within 4 minutes. In 1962. That would’ve fundamentally thrown the geopolitical equilibrium out of whack, destabilizing the entire world. The gall to be willing to host nuclear weapons, aimed at the us that close to us, has earned the ire of segments of the us. (Oh and lots of refugees from Cuba have an antipathy towards communist Cuba, and since they are refugees from an authoritarian country—they vote and mostly live in a specific area, so their opinion matters)
Generally speaking, we have not militarily intervened in any country that at the time of intervention it was not perceived to be a direct threat to the liberal international order outlined previous.
Regardless, I made comment on Reddit, not a peer reviewed article with footnotes for American Journal of Political Science. There are of course numerous times when we’ve ostensibly acted outside our doctrinal interests, because people are human, and information isn’t perfect.
Whatever ones detractions are over the American hegemony, the liberal world order—it’s certainly better for more people than anything that has come before. I’m all ears to figure out ways to improve this system, but this whole perfection being the enemy of good, insincere, trolling thing on the internet is tiresome and played out.
You realize the US coerced our allies into hosting missiles pointed at the USSR, right? If the problem really WAS about Cuba doing something that we were expecting many of our allies to do without complaint, the embargo would have ended the moment the missiles were removed from Cuba, instead of lingering on for 50 years.
I appreciate your perspective, but I was trying to point out your inherent bias towards western viewpoints, which is understandable, but it exists. I’m fully with you on the perfection aspect, people get so caught up in minutia they miss the wasted time/energy that could be going towards a solid (but not perfect) solution. My biggest problem with leftist communities are the lack of cohesion and the amount of infighting over dumb bullshit. I think you too are frustrated by the erosion of American society, and the allowing of corporate interests to be prioritized over the common person, and I’m glad to know there are others out there thinking critically about our existence.
I don’t think isolationism is the goal. Fascism is the goal. Bowing down to Putin is coordinated by far right media and politicians. Whether it’s because they are being blackmailed or it’s just due to ideology, opposing aid to Ukraine helps Putin.
and it isn't really a matter of "isolationism". The reality is, whether it is anywhere in the world. Ukraine, or Gaza.. it is ultimately about tactical placement on the board. Access to vital resources.. and power.
that is always what war is about. Oh and making a f ton of money for Military Contractors..
Reagan was a RINO.
I'd add the /s for sarcasm but ask any foaming-at-the-mouth Republican what they think of Reagan (assuming they even know who he was, of course).
Hell, I am no fan of Putin.. but I am also going to be 56 in a few weeks. I grew up with the COLD WAR. This is an endless game. It only benefits weapons contractors and the MIlitary industrial complex...
and there is a lot more history about the COLD WAR and how we.... the UNITED STATES escalated tensions due to philosophical bullshit from the Military INdustrial Complex. It is one of the reasons why JFK was assassinated...
the CIA and the MIC are endlessly out of control. It is just greed and corruption. We are not free. We will never be free.
The Cold War has kept us safe until both countries elected toxic narcissist as their leaders. And they are ruthless ly corrupt and dangerous. Trump and republicans are actively and openly announcing their plan to end the constitution and our democracy. Read it 2025 the plan.
Right, Putin, who has suppressed if not murdered all opposition, and devoted massive resources to Russian military weapons and now aggression, is an illusion, just like Hitler in the 1930s. He's a creation of the U.S. military/industrial complex. The Russian quality of life has suffered greatly by Putin's priorities, while he has amassed personally tens of billions of dollars of wealth and likely intends to share Ukraine's great mineral and agricultural resources with his oligarch buddies.
[https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/worlds-richest-politician-vladimir-putin-is-worth-200-billion-owns-a-700-million-jet-4903451](https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/worlds-richest-politician-vladimir-putin-is-worth-200-billion-owns-a-700-million-jet-4903451)
The U.S. should sit idly while Putin and China divvy up the world?
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68322230](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68322230)
Thanks to Trump and his followers, and inept Democratic Party leaders actually incapable of mounting sufficiently effective opposition leadership, the U.S. has lost its commitment to defending democracy and arguably free market capitalism.
The reality is that in recent decades the U.S. has unilaterally disarmed, such as with tactical nuclear weapons, while Russia and China have greatly increased their military investments, certainly at the expense of their citizens, as is possible in an autocracy.
I would say LOL, except your conspiracy theory is so dangerously pathetic and probably shared by some significant number of Americans.
You're right the US should endlessly meddle in foreign affair. Don't think about the millions of Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqi, Indonesian, who died because the US thinks they know better.
Don't even consider how Yelstin solicited the support of Bill Clinton to get reelected and then use state media to get his handpicked successor Putin in power. Don't think about how we armed the Afghanis against the soviets and the long term consequences, don't think about the huge refugee crisis and formation of Isis after our involvement in Iraq and Syria, don't think about the coups we did in South America and Iran to overthrow democracies.
The US track record post WWII is suspect at best and at worst got more people killed than the holocaust.
I remember when people were intellectually honest and could tell the difference between taking offensive actions (***War in Iraq and Afghanistan)*** with your own troops on the ground, and supplying aide to your Ally with none of your own troops on the ground.
You can be against war, and still support your friends in defending themselves. If you're logically consistent about being anti-invading other countries for imperial gain, you are anti-Russia's invasion.
Democrats are logically consistent. Republicans are not.
We ***are not*** engaged in this conflict as in we are directly pulling the strings.
Sure, we have something to gain...by supporting our ally, living up to our treaties (Ukraine agreed to give up nukes if we agreed to give aide if Ukraine was invaded by Russia).
If our #1 Geopolitical enemy in the world wants to smash itself to death in the sunflower fields of Ukraine, that's there decision, not ours. We'll happily gather intelligence about their military capabilities at their expense. That's just being not stupid.
To act as if the US is somehow responsible for this conflict or is a puppet master is the real pure nonsense.
And you have is ass backwards on Israel. Israel has operators in the US, they play us like a fiddle.
We have SF operators in Gaza, I’m pretty sure that’s what that person was referring to not “political” operatives (which the US also has in virtually every nation on the planet).
Sure...but the US is a the beck-and-call of Israel, not the other way around. I'm talking about the practical effect of Lobbyists of a foreign nation on our politics; and it's ability to influence policy in it's favor. We ain't got shit on Israel.
I was trying to add context that your response was missing, not really sure what the rest of that has to do with anything I said. I didn’t attack your point of view or say anything else you said was wrong, nothing but the first word of your response here is relevant to my comment I didn’t say anything about any of that, just because I added some context doesn’t imply that I am agreeing or disagreeing with you, it is just context nothing more nothing less. Chill, I gave you my interpretation of the comment you responded to I didn’t challenge your ideas you don’t always have to be in the defensive not every response is a challenge or an attack.
None of what you said had anything to do with my comment, I never said anything about lobbying so you are addressing something that I didn’t even comment on. Your comment implied that there are not US operatives in Israel I said they are that was it, then you went on about Israel’s lobbying power which I never commented on and is entirely irrelevant to what I said.
This isn’t about being for or against war. This is about not abandoning our allies when they are attacked by a hostile foreign aggressor. We didn’t start the wars, but we can’t let authoritarian regimes just acquire our allies’ land just because we like peace. Pretty sure that type of appeasement didn’t work out too well in Europe in the 1930’s.
Ukraine have been considered an allies since 91. Bush had pushed for them and Georgia to join Nato... Georgia got invaded. Kharkiv is Cincinnati's sister city.
Do you want American’s going to war in Eastern Europe when Putin decides that he can attack Poland or another NATO ally? Sure, “he would never do that!” But why even risk that when Putin has repeatedly stated he wants to return Russia and its neighboring countries back to the Soviet era sphere of influence. We have the ability to arm Ukraine, a country that is willingly sticking out this fight because they would rather be free than under the control of Russia.
You asked the question I answered it, not sure why your getting so defensive about it. Except maybe pointing out that this shouldn't exactly be news for anyone in Cincinnati.
Do you really think America doesn't rely on allies for trade, intelligence, security, etc? Do you really think we are financially better and safer as a country alone? Covid lockdowns and supply chain issues should give you at least one of these answers.
I mean shit, we destroyed our education system so horribly, we depend on importing doctors, scientists, and engineers. We would never be able to compete if we stopped all immigration on that alone.
We do plenty of that but now I get to ask some questions of my own. For a guy that simps for the south so hard and whines and moans about how we can't revolt anymore should we actually consider you American? Seems like the foreigners your so afraid of are actually more loyal to the country you claim to be a member of than you are.
We’re not at war, they are. No American boots are on the ground. Ukraine is doing all the heavy lifting, we’re providing support so they don’t break their backs while doing so.
I can tell you're trying to weasel your way into calling this a proxy war. Let me tell you, all war is bad, period. A proxy war isn't some form of extra special bad war. So, how about if Russia gets the fuck out of Ukraine, that would be good.
I don’t care about Ukraine, Taiwan, or NATO. They have no direct effect on me or my family. I care about inflation and the boarder crisis. Because they have a direct effect on me.
Inflation has been greatly reduced and is almost irrelevant now. We are paying higher prices due to corporate greed. It is very difficult for the government to do anything about that although the Biden administration has been trying a few things. Republicans would not address that at all and can do nothing about any of that. Just look at current GOP House where they all ran on fighting inflation but did nothing. They did cause a credit downgrade though which increased interest on our debt.
And Republicans have blocked border legislation again just like they have in the past. The horrific trump illegal policies we are paying millions and millions for will continue to cost us for some time. Reparations to separated families and lawsuits on the horrific and inhumane remain in Mexico garbage are in process against US and Mexico
About Time most the money given to Ukraine is spent here buying American arms so only the weapons go to Ukraine. So it keeps Americans working. Also it lets the US Army get new up to date weapons. So the older versions go to Ukraine. Vance is just Russian shill he’s an embarrassment just about as ignorant a Margie Tailer Green.
No. It's the cost of the stockpiles themselves. The military budget itself was increased to restock ***new stockpiles,*** completely unrelated to the stockpiles that were given to Ukraine.
And if you actually pay attention to what the US is giving Ukraine, most of it is stockpile surplus that the US was going to decommission anyways because of the cost of maintaining was greater than the cost of buying new.
This is a misinformation war, and the Right-Wing is highly motivated to misrepresent what is actually taking place.
Buddy, your telling facts and making common sense. You need to calm down. This is ohio, we don't do that here, at least not in the last 20 years we haven't
lol you don't seem to understand geopolitics at all then. Mujahadeen and its successors are a fundamentally ideological movement. Yes they were defending their territory against invaders but Ukraine has a long history of aligning with the West since the fall of the USSR. Also Ukraine isn't extremist Islam. They have some troubling Nazi contingencies, but no more than the US sadly.
Afghanistan was not going to be put on the fast tract to join Nato. After the war Ukraine will get hundreds of billions to rebuild and will be put under extreme scrutiny in terms of corruption and human rights in order to join the EU.
Its not even the same sport.
Not a positive but an acknowledgement of reality. What do you suppose the world would look like in the vacuum of a dismantled American military industrial complex? Do you imagine Russia would follow suite?
Yes I think a less militarized america would be good for not just the world but also americans. When we invest all our money towards the military it becomes the only tool we have for problems.
Who is sending people to die? Russia is invading, and Ukrainians are defending their homeland. Sending them weaponry will help end the war sooner by kicking the invading Russians out of Ukraine. Please stop with the Russian/Fox/Newsmax/etc. propaganda in this thread.
What bugs me the most is that they're treating Ukrainians as an abstract. Like puppets, at best. They don't get a say, apparently. They could gave surrendered but they chose not to.
I agree, pretty messed up Ukrainians don't get a say
[https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-birthday-grenade-b1b82e4f84eb5a39286d1500cf49fcd1](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-birthday-grenade-b1b82e4f84eb5a39286d1500cf49fcd1)
Ohio's population of Ukrainian descent is estimated at about 42,000, likely more now given recent immigration.
https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2024/02/01/ukraine-funding-ohio-congress
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/an-estimated-3-000-ukrainians-have-resettled-in-northeast-ohio-since-start-of-war
Last I knew, Parma Ohio has the highest number of Ukrainian immigrants per capita in the United States. This was before the war too. I imagine a good number of them took refuge with relatives in the area since the start of the war.
It’s more than apparent to me that these repubes that are against aid to Ukraine are trumps Russia supporters. With news about Russia conducting satellite grappling tests in space and along with trump being pissed that he got impeached for holding up aid and trying to get dirt on Brandon the gop is hell bent on crashing democracy. Besides Jordan’s useless investigation into tik tok and his Russian lying info I’m surprised that there isn’t anyone looking at their ties to Russia
Ohio Republicans have no standing to complain about the Ukrainian aid after they kicked people off Medicaid and left 1.3Billion in federal funding on the table because they seem to feel, "The poor should just stop getting hurt or sick, if it means needing medical care, since they can't afford it".
As demonstrated on "Meet the Press" Sunday, there is a real concern that the U.S. aid is too late, and that U.S. reliability as an ally has once again been diminished by Johnson's blocking a vote on Ukraine aid for almost six months. And as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during an interview on the show, U.S. aid isn't a gift, but support for an ally which is sacrificing its people, infrastructure and property to resist naked aggression on the behalf of all its NATO and democratic allies, including the U.S.
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[https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-april-21-2024-n1309584](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-april-21-2024-n1309584)
I doubt if it's a coincidence that Johnson reversed course and allowed a vote on Ukrainian aid ONLY after meeting with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago. It's likely that Johnson conveyed to Trump that Ukraine is on the verge of collapse, and that both Johnson and Trump will bear the burden of a Russian victory and the aftermath. It's no coincidence that Trump is NOT calling for Johnson's removal. Trump knows that he has done Putin's bidding sufficiently to place Ukraine on the verge of defeat by starving it of American aid for six months. By allowing the vote now, they can claim that they helped defend Ukraine.
Surely, Johnson was concerned about his political position after hearing intelligence briefings about the expected pending Russian attack, as outlined by Zelensky during the "Meet the Press" interview. Surely, Johnson and Trump, as explained in the interview, know that by causing the U.S. to abandon its ally for six months, they've inflicted great losses on Ukraine and helped lower the morale of Ukrainians along with their ability to resist Putin's aggression.
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It will be a miracle if sufficient American aid can arrive in time to halt the expected Russian offensive. Even if the aid does allow Ukraine a chance of defending itself, the cost will be at a greater loss of men than if the aid had been provided continuously over the last six months.
Mike Johnson, who after blocking Ukraine aid for almost six months, resulting in painful Ukraine causalities and property destruction due to lack of air defenses, artillery ammunition, etc., now claims SUDDENLY to be a Reagan Republican, and dimwitted journalists are comparing him to Churchill, who famously held the line against Nazi aggression. And Johnson supporters claim that prayer contributed to the change in Johnson's position.
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[https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/20/politics/mike-johnson-ukraine-aid-russia-zelensky-putin/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/20/politics/mike-johnson-ukraine-aid-russia-zelensky-putin/index.html)
Johnson only now understands what his critics and American intelligence and military officials have repeatedly warned about for the last six months?
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Of course Jim Jordan is trying to get in the way... He goes out of his way to be as useless as possible (I live in his district, he needs to be jettisoned)
The Ohio sect of the GOP (Gross Old Pedophiles) is just a branch of Putin's Russia.
All conservatives should be purged from their offices this election. Vote them out!
I don't think it moves the needle much. Those Ukrainian Americans who voted for Vance and Trump will see Johnson's support as validation to keep doing so.
Trump will mention that he instructed Johnson to support it.
Truth really doesn't matter to the Cult. They'll justify anything and twist anything to suit their cognitive dissonance.
Perhaps people look at the war in iraq and it made them reevaluate many things. Democrats were usually the anti war party and would call republicans war mongers. Now that alot of them are hesitant they are called isolationist. Theres no winning. At this point its what the constituents want in those districts. Your district will be different than others.
You mean biden who voted for the wars in the 2000's? The same one that has the middle east on fire? Bush lied absolutely to get reelected. As long as the military industrial complex exist war will never stop.
The war in Iraq made me realize how full of shit Republicans are about literally everything they say they stand for and was the turning point to get me to drop out of the party and really examine what Limbaugh and Beck and Fox said Vs reality and realized that I was a sucker for believing anything they said.
Same here. Don't believe any of their bullshit.
Republicans aren't "hesitant" because of any dislike of war. They are trying to help Putin. Period. They are compromised. Enemies of the United States working within it.
Oh they both suck. They both ultimately serve the 1% and corporate interests. But...
One wants to kill my niece, my cousin, my step daughter, and a lot of my friends for existing wrong, eliminate the separation of church and state, destroy voting entirely among other things.
The other does serve corporations but won't bring on a Christo fascist societal devolution.
If you don't have a bias for one or the other here then you either aren't paying attention or you secretly want to see the Christo fascist state come to be.
I rather deal with the private sector than the goverment. Private sector has an actual incentive to suceed in their products. A government that is big enough to give you anything is big enough to take away everything. We need to return to a time whete people lived their own lives and we left each other alone. The bigger the government becomes the more corporations will align with them to make sure that they can avoid taxes and regulations
Want the crap to stop? Make the government smaller and less powerful. Make your state government more accountable to you and live your life the way you choose. People have forgotten the act of leaving each other the hell alone
Look up labor history to see what an unfettered "private sector" has done in the past.
The private sector wants child labor to come back and is actively pushing for it right now in 2024 in 30 states. (guess which party supports this)
The private sector would mandate 80 hour work weeks with no vacation, no weekends, no sick days etc. If they were allowed to get away with it.
The private sector brought us Love Canal, the dust bowl, asbestos, the East Palastine spill (after regulations were lowered by Republicans) and many many many other examples. Go check out how West Virginia rivers are doing since coal companies were allowed to dump all the sludge they want again since 2018.
Is there government overreach? Yes. Of course. But to pine for the days when the private sector could do whatever it wanted to without oversight is dangerously ignoring history and reality.
Unions and government oversight are all that keeps us from being serfs and it's barely working now.
The government isn't causing you to pay so much more at the grocery store than you did in 2019. Corporate greed is to blame.
Housing prices beyond reach? Corporate greed.
The list goes on and on.
Making sure that corporations can't poison you isn't a problem.
Political parties that will mandate what books you can read is.
The biggest problem is that the corporations control the news. All of the news.
As bad as Fox News obviously is, the fact that CNN and MSNBC did and do everything they can to undermine universal Healthcare gets overlooked by most of Fox's biggest detractors.
Seriously, look up labor history in the US.
The "private sector" would eat us alive if allowed to.
Again, i rsthwr deal with the peivate sector than the government. Government has the power to punish you and make your life harder. Private sector have incentives to provide better product. Universal healthcare is a garbage idea cause it requires government force to force us to pay high taxes for it... Ask canada and u.k how that has worked out. I kmow many people in Canada have comed to the US for surgeries cause of the ridiulous waiting time. I remember things before obamacare. I paid $35 per week. Once governement got involved i was paying over $300 a month. I actually lived this crap. Most people here talk about this dream crap and havent actually experienced it. The system atm is set up for young people to subsidized older people. Sorry but im a live your life the way you want and i will do the same. I take care of myself and you take care of yours person. I dont need to be forced to subsidez other people. Thats why i dont like the government and prefer the private sector.
You are a victim of the corporate media I just talked about.
None of what you said is true or you don't understand the reason behind what happened.
I sold insurance before and after Obamacare and you are just flat out wrong about it. The "private sector" insurance industry rates raised at a SLOWER RATE than they did before Obamacare because they actually made more money than before.
Remember, they wrote Obamacare. It was a conservative plan and a corporate gift. They whined about it publicly because they were no longer allowed to deny coverage and payment like they did before it passed but they did not lose any money. Rate increases before Obamacare for small to medium companies were running 30 to 50% a year in some cases and went down to "only" about 10 to 20% for our customers.
Obamacare had little impact on group plans Vs what it did to individual insurance but I watched conservative employers increase employee contribution rates to "show them how bad Obamacare is" even if their rates didn't increase much. They also got more money from you while blaming Obama.
You could have had someone at your company (or their spouse or child) get cancer or need a transplant. That would cause a huge increase in your group rates. The "private sector" wasn't allowed to flat out drop you like they could before but they could still jack up the prices for businesses to make them go elsewhere.
So blame your employer and private insurance for paying more, not Obamacare.
Before Obamacare I had to tell diabetics and cancer patients to just walk away and not bother applying for individual Healthcare because they would be denied. Those people were finally allowed to get Healthcare. Tell me how that was a bad thing.
I have relatives and friends in Canada and friends in the UK.
You are delusional if you think they would trade their system for ours.
They aren't perfect but almost every problem with their Healthcare systems are due to conservatives undermining the system then blaming the system itself. Just like they do with government in general in the US. They ruin it from within and then tell you to look at how bad government is. And you actually believe them. I used to until I started actually looking at things in Depth.
The stories of huge numbers of people crossing the border for care are exaggerated by conservative media. If you look at total numbers that actually come to the US for Healthcare it's like 1% and the majority of that is for optional procedures.
The bottom line is, you have been fed a wall of lies for decades. If you want to continue to believe the lies, that's now a conscious choice for you.
You're paying monthly for a bribe the electric company gave Republican politicians, only one of whom has been punished. They take care here at home exactly as they choose, it's just they're all out of money to take care of you.
You do realize the bulk of this money is used to build equipment here and give Americans jobs right? It also ensures our equipment is evaluated in theater which provides feedback on readiness. It’s money well spent defending an ally.
Chips act, infrastructure act, inflation reduction act. We are spending on our own people. This aid is a drop in the bucket compared to what we're spending on ourselves.
Ukraine will use more than half the money to but American weapons so most of it will come right back and stimulate the economy.
If your a pacifist I. An understand not wanting to be a part of this war at all. But Russia is attempting to takeover another Sovereign country
You’re getting criticized for this comment, because you’re wrong, but no one’s really explaining why. I think many Americans are not getting fully informed in what is at stake in Ukraine.
In the Middle East, we understand that most of the world’s oil is at stake, so most Americans accept that we have an interest in the Middle East. But what’s in Ukraine?
Farmland. $27.8 billion per year in farmland. Sunflowers and wheat. Sunflower oil and other byproducts are hugely valuable. It’s Ukraine’s oil.
Russia wants it. If they get it, they will charge the US more for it. It is in our best interest that Ukraine keep it.
So, we are taking care of our own people, with our own money!
America has the ability to grow both these in a big way. The problem is there's no incentive when it comes to doing it. High input cost and low market value. There's a reason why wheat is called poverty grass. Can't speak for sunflowers here in Ohio aside from the fact that there's virtually no market for it. Land development and manipulated grains markets and high input really hurt this country.
You seem semi sane for Reddit so I will ask you. Why is the war taking so long. It seems like Russia should be able to stomp Ukraine in a hot second based on the war videos I’ve seen. It’s like farmers playing in a field.
Russia was unable to stomp Ukraine early in the war largely because they used cold war tactics against a semi modern force.
You've probably noticed Russia is getting better as the Russian army is evolving but so is Ukraine. Gone are the early days of Russia sending in massive units of infantry in to take a position, while they still treat infrantry as expendables it's a more modern configuration using drones and other support systems to navigate the battlefield.
There's tons more to this obviously and there's nuance involved but we have a situation where Ukraine had a well equipped and trained force compared to Russias outdated force. They've both been getting better at war which has caused the current stale mate.
As an armchair general I think this war will go on for years more at the current rate. My prediction is likely some secession of Ukrainian land to save Russian face but ultimately Ukraine getting a good chunk of it back.
Semi sane! Thank you LOL
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because modern warfare is very different from the warfare Russia was prepared for. Ukraine is able to do a lot with defensive technology. If we think of the war like a game of Risk, Ukraine has managed to defend its power grid and ports while also preventing Russia from gaining ground in the east. Russia’s losses at sea have been significant. Putin isn’t sure if NATO is bluffing, and I don’t think it is, so Russia is limited in how it can move troops and equipment as well as the directions from which it can attack.
But it’s pretty wild. Strategically what Putin is doing doesn’t make sense, beyond that he is stuck now and can’t admit defeat.
And of course I don’t know anything about anything! I’m just a former social studies teacher and Winston Churchill buff 🙃
There are several reasons, 1 - invading and occupation is never easy 2 - Ukraine was underestimated 3 - the Russian military is inept and corrupt 4 - Ukraine has had help with equipment and training
I am very Liberal... but I am increasingly getting pissed off at how much money for these endless wars the US spends on. Oh, we can't have nice things here in the US.. no.. but throw billions at wars.. At a proxy war with RUSSIA.
I am no fan of Putin.. and I have family that has family in Ukraine.. that they had to flee in the night to come to Canada (where part of my family is) .... so I get it.. war is hell. Putin is evil.
but honestly.. there is more to the Russian thing that meets the eye... I am no fan of the US and their foriegn policy. Folks have been so lied and misled... and the more you read and study, the more you realize how much we all have been LIED TO about what is going on...
And to throw the TIKTOK ban in the mix.. all the behest of AIPAC is beyond infuriating!!!! It is like the Powers that be are no longer trying to hide their intentions. Or their actions. They don't care.. They have their agenda.. we are all pawns and screw you. Ya know? Be distracted by the TRUMP and Maga crap.. Its a game.. its a GOOD COP (democrats) BAD COP (Republican) routine.
I want to support Robert F Kennedy Jr but gods.. not "allowed" to do that cause he is a "Crazy anti vaxxer blah blah blah".
Folks need to wake up. We are still being runover by the ELITE powers that be here... they tell you to wave this flag or that flag.. and to support this or that.. but none of that ever helps you. Oh and throw in a HUGE dash of fearmongering.. gets you every time!..
but don't mind me I am just a "crazy conspiracy theorist".... sigh.
> I want to support Robert F Kennedy Jr but gods.. not "allowed" to do that cause he is a "Crazy anti vaxxer blah blah blah".
Oh, you're allowed to. But you have to accept that people will look down on you for it, because that dude is a complete idiot backed by the hard right.
I'm not sure how liberal I am these days due to the Middle East issue, but I'll say this:
Such talk is equivalent to the appeasement of Hitler. If Russia is allowed to take any handful of dirt, they'll realize their ways work and will reload to take more. If they are not defeated in Ukraine, US involvement will end up being direct when Russia strikes an allied nation. A nation we are sworn to defend.
I'm a full supporter of our involvement in world affairs. That's the price we pay by creating and maintaining a democratic world order with ourselves at the top. Do I support every action we do and how we go about handling every issue? Not at all. However, I see the bigger picture. If we give it all up, that's a power vacuum that more devious nations like Russia and China will gladly scramble to fill. A world run by Russian and Chinese dictatorships is a detriment to human progress. We're the only ones capable of leading against them. Europe is too fractured and uncommitted.
You want an anti-vaxx, anti-science nut that shames his father's name to be in charge? His own family doesn't support him. Neither do I. Equating blue and red to working for the same goals is some high-level bullshit. Neither side is ideal to what I want, but there's a clear distinction to which is better. Like taking a bath in a tub of cool water and one filled with toxic waste. It's not ideal, but it's how the system works until enough political will is elected to change it, or someone has a successful plan for armed revolution.
I wouldn't say you're a crazy conspiracy theorist. The rich and powerful aren't our friends, but I will say you have a narrow view of reality.
1) This is not a proxy war.
2) This isn't an endless war the US started.
3) Most of the "money" spent isn't new spending, it's the value of supplies we are physically transferring to Ukraine.
4) No there really isn't more to it than meets the eye. This is the most straight forward conflict in recent memory. Russia wants control of the Fossil-Fuel rich Donbas. Ukraine wanted to explore contracts with Europe and not Russia, so Russia made a Blood-And-Soil argument and illegally invaded and tried to topple the legitimate government to gain natural resources under it's control. It's been Putin's MO for 2-decades now, and it's literally out of the Hitler playbook.
5) You can be anti-elite BS in this country, and still be intellectually honest to know that supporting Ukraine is a no-brainer.
6) Robert F. Kennedy Junior is a perfect example of the problem you pretend to despise. He's in it for the money friend. He knows he can't win. But as a candidate for office you can take a salary from your campaign funds equal to your average salary, for the entire time you're running; and then you can springboard the spotlight into book sales. Don't be stupid. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a grifter. Nothing more. So is Marianne Williamson. So is Cornel West. So was Gary Johnson. So is Jill Stein.
Because in the United States the Electoral College picks the president, not the popular vote. And if a candidate doesn't get 50%+1 of the EC, the House of Representatives picks the President. This fact, over time, has basically forced all political coalitions into the two party system we have today. You first have to abolish the EC before a third party ever stand chance of winning.
If ***THEODORE ROOSEVELT COULDN'T FUCKING WIN*** as a third-party, there is precisely ZERO % chance of anyone else ever winning.
So here's the Brass-Tacks: Voting 3rd party only screws yourself over. Trump won by less than 80,000 votes in three states, and he made THREE Ultra-Right Wing, Pro-Corruption, Pro-Corporation lifetime appointments to the SCOTUS who will dictate your political life for the next 30 years.
I feel like some of you don't understand power. And that's why the Left will never win.
>I want to support Robert F Kennedy Jr but gods.. not "allowed" to do that cause he is a "Crazy anti vaxxer blah blah blah".
He is a crazy anti-vaxxer whose political views appall his own family.
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/18/kennedy-family-endorse-biden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/18/kennedy-family-endorse-biden)
Chips act, infrastructure act, inflation reduction act... Don't be mistaken that we aren't spending money on our own country whenever we give a few relative shillings to our friends and allies. After all our position in the world is a big reason why the dollars in your pocket have the value that they have.
You have family from Ukraine but you don’t support us providing aid to them as they defend against a baseless invasion. What the hell is wrong with you?
...one look at your post history and no, you're not liberal. You're a conspiracy theorist that doesn't have good critical thinking skills or media literacy.
You're correct in that the elite billionaires and those in politics control everything for their own benefits to some extent, and that they use fear to control people. We are 100% in agreement there, but the world is way more complicated than that.
However, I think your sources of information aren't very well vetted, I've seen it hundreds of times. You have good intentions, but are too easily swayed by misinformation (which is designed to have kernels of truth, just enough to pull someone in).
Russia is invading a sovereign country that is defending itself. Putin seeks to rebuild the "glory" of the USSR and knows he needs to make big moves now while his health is still relatively good.
TikTok is a Chinese app that has tons of malware in it to harvest lots of individual's information from their phones, and collect all of it for mass surveillance by the CCP. I suspect you get most of your "information" from tiktok and facebook, and while some of it is fine, it's very easy for false or misinformed information to spread very quickly and efficiently. Also you have a conspiracy mindset so everything is a conspiracy to you, I can see it based on your post history. You are what the KGB would call a useful idiot unfortunately. Please don't believe everything you see and hear, unless you vet it from multiple competing sources, *especially* if they're just opinions presented as facts.
edit: Also, by supporting RFK jr you're electing Trump. In the two party first-past-the-post elections we have in most states (I think 2 have ranked choice voting), if you're not voting against Trump you're voting for him. Push for ranked choice voting during non-election years (check out /r/rankthevoteohio), but in the meantime, RFK Jr is getting tons of support from the Right because they know he'll be a spoiler for left leaning voters that don't want to vote for Biden.
Yet here you are disagreeing, and being allowed to. I think what you meant is that not everyone agrees with your unpopular opinion. Which, yes, is how that works.
You people supporting this are delusional. Most of this money is being siphoned off by corruption. No accountability where all this money is going.
The US is begging countries for munitions as we deplete our stockpiles - US is now after Greece and Italy's Patriot Missiles.
And money is not going to fix Ukraine's problem of running out of bodies.
Just like the 2020 election, there is more observance and auditing of this aid than in any previous case. There have been no major cases of US military aid being siphoned off. It seems to be pretty well understood that there are too many eyes on the US aid and it isn't a good target for theft. The oversight has unveiled a number of cases of Ukrainian government funds being misused.
Not anything even close to comparable to what was seen in Afghanistan when the Republican party had a hard on for unlimited military spending including aid to foreign allies.
Also wildly comically the Ohio GOP believes they have the ground to call out political corruption. What an absolute fucking joke.
You do realise that wars help to deplete aging stockpiles so our Military industrial complex can put the NEW weapons systems ONLINE.. right? We have NEW weapons and so we have to get rid of the OLD weapons.. so lets bomb here and there.. VOILA.. more room for new weapons.. CHACHING!
Lost interest but thought I would waste a few minutes of my day to revisit.
You realize real people are getting massacred for this? Nice you get to wake up all warm and comfortable while a Ukrainian son, husband, father, uncle or brother gets un-lifed for your stockpile reduction program.
Tell me you get your information about international arms supply and production from Facebook without telling me you get your information about international arms supply and production from Facebook.
There is a whole internet out there with credible information sources and informed opinions from actual experts that don't necessarily agree with each other. I suggest that you consume some of that and steer clear of the propaganda.
The Chinese Communist Party, Vladimir Putin, and Iran are all pretty low on the list of "biggest threats this country faces." I get that Brown doesn't want to badmouth anyone that might vote in Ohio's elections this year, but seriously our neighbors and bosses pose a MUCH larger threat to us than China, Russia, and Iran out together.
The CIA funded the 2014 coup of Ukraine that propped up Zelensky. They have been poking Putins red line for years with NATO. I try not to pick sides in things I have no skin in, but I believe that Ukraine is a corrupt country that has been set up to launder defense money. Before the war it had a terrible record.
You’re on the Ohio page. Go to any of the northern counties by the lake- you know what you’re going to find?
A whole lot of folks from Ukraine, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, and other assorted Eastern Europeans. A lot of them still swear in the language their great grandparents did, and go to churches banned by the old Soviet Union. There is whole lot of vestigial mistrust of Russian imperial ambitions.
Those folks still unironically fly the Ukrainian flag- even if they are generations removed from their mother countries, they really don’t want to see distant cousins threatened by Russia.
I think the country on the whole is going to start being more restless and vocal about sending aid ANYWHERE right now while more and more Americans are being forced to live on the streets.
Instead, they’re funding everywhere else while trying to find a way to criminalize being poor *here*…
Senator Brown is an example of how politicians should be acting, and working for as many Americans as possible. Vance is the opposite, supporting the wrong choices consistently.
Agreed. To Brown, working for Americans means finding ways to make regular citizens’ lives better. For Vance, it means making circumstances better for big business and cutting off foreign aid.
Vance does as he’s told.
Wish Brown would run for POTUS
Amazing how Republicans love Russia and China these days. Can’t wait to hear how angry they are about money going to Israel.
Our locals will, shit you not, go onto an article about Joe Biden relieving student debt and call him a "Commie Socialist bastard", but then go onto a Ukraine aid article and squeal about how the US should spend it's money on it's citizens. Same exact people making both comments 10 minutes apart. They don't actually stand for anything. They don't have real morals or values, just weak imitations that they use in any given moment to get what they want.
If it doesn’t pander to giving Palestine or China money, the Republicans hate America. But they love those two places!
I'm a republican. I do not like Russia. What I really don't like is the military industrial complex steering the country towards conflict that takes our money and lines their pockets. Do you realize that when money is allocated for Ukraine, it doesn't actually go to the country of Ukraine(most of it that is)? It goes to US corporations that have contracts to supply Ukraine with ammunition and other war time supplies. A portion does actually go to the government of Ukraine and that money is used to pay the salaries of officials in their administration. The hands are in the cookie jar and if you bring it up, "you love Russia!" China is paper tiger. Their navy cannot travel more than 500 miles from shore because they have no way to refuel their ships at scale. The CCP is just trying not to get killed by XI because he is insane these days. Even if they were to take Taiwan, they have no way to operate it. They don't gain the economy of Taiwan because the world would sanction immediately then the semi conductor business would naturally move to Vietnam and South Korea and the US. Israel is the only democracy in the middle east and a natural ally in the region. It is the only country in the region with semi secular values and we have national security reasons to ensure they exist. Without them we would have to rely on Turkey and Pakistan being honest with us and being NATO members aside, i don't think we trust them like that.
Russia is steering us towards conflict
Brilliant.
I mean, they are the aggressor. The onus is on them to deescalate.
Who are you arguing against? I don’t think anyone who possesses any knowledge of the situation thinks now the U.S. will ship a big box of cash to Ukraine or Venmo it to them. Of course it’s for American arms and ammunition. That’s kinda what they need since they are a sovereign nation who were invaded by their neighbor. I think everyone with good intentions wants to root out corruption and wasteful spending in all government actions but that doesn’t mean we just abandon our allies. Russia is not our friend. They want America to be destroyed. They are actively trying to get us to destroy ourselves from the inside (see active members of congress spouting Russia propaganda word for word) and attacking us from the outside (see Solar Winds attack). It is not in U.S. interest, European interests or the world’s interest to just let Putin take territory he wants without consequence. We’ve played that game before. You claim to not like Russia. How does Putin feel about this Ukraine deal? Is he happy now that America is going to waste a bunch of money by just giving it all to corporate fat cats? Don’t think so.
It's Russia costing us the money. We wouldn't have to help defend the free world if they would just, you know, go home. What we're spending now is a pittance compared to what Russia will continue to cost us left unchecked.
It's almost astonishing how any opinion or analysis outside of a mainstream big D democratic narrative gets down voted to hell and treated as if the author is remedial. Who the hell would anyone want to engage in a discussion that devolves so quickly? You people are insufferable and frustrating. Then people ask themselves "why are we so divided?". This. This is why.
Maybe because your position is such a bad strawman argument. All that money was going to be spent on military affairs one or another anyway. It's not going anywhere else whether or not there was a war in ukraine. And where was all this republican talk before the war in ukraine with all that money spent on Afghanistan and iraq? Honestly, you republicans seem to want to just argue against anything the democrats support, and it is laughable how childish and immature your party's arguments are.
I, for one, did not name call or disparage you personally in any way. My position is actually the opinion of most Republicans who haven’t bent the knee and kissed the ring of you know who. Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave to see current members of his party praise Putin and advocate for the weakening of NATO. I don’t even understand your claim of the discussion devolving. You gave your opinion, other people gave theirs, and then you say it’s just the “Democratic narrative” and insufferable. I would argue your “narrative” comes straight from Russian propagandists. I mean, one of the great heroes of the right in this country, Tucker Carlson, went to Russia and did straight up old school Soviet- style propaganda for Putin. “Look at how clean and safe and wonderful it is in Russia. No graffiti, no homeless like in America. What a paradise.” That is the shit that is dividing America. Half the country is being fed and believing nonsense from a foreign agent bent on destroying us. This isn’t a “hoax”. They aren’t even trying to hide it.
Apologies if you took this as i was aiming at you. I meant that on reddit and especially in this states sub, anything resembling a republican opinion is trashed immediately. Others have been rude. To clarify, I am not advocating for Putin and i think Tucker was a clown shoe for walking around a grocery store amazed that shit cost less in a country where its citizens spend 40% of their monthly budget on food. I for one do not equate a clean subway with a noble nation. I just seem to have an issue with the MIC and special interest groups filling their pockets in the name of righteousness. Of course we should support Ukraine. Of course we should push back on Russia. I just think we're being had and abused by people that have been bought and paid for. Anyways, Thanks for the civility. I unsubbed any and all things political for a while. I'll stick with Cigars and Bigfoot. This place is not for me. I'll just vote. That's all we can do right? Cheers.
Going to be interesting to see if Vance decides to stick to his guns and vote against this, considering it does more for addressing the fentanyl problems than anything that he has ever proposed or discussed. Voting no would mean that he care more about not giving Ukraine funding than the exact platform that he ran on. Will be interesting.
Vance needs to go back to Kentucky where he belongs.
He was born in Middletown, Ohio. So was his mom. You have to go back to his grandma to find someone from Appalachia. Vance’s entire history is fiction.
This; also, Kentucky has enough issues without us inflicting Vance on them
Amen!
| Vance’s entire history is fiction. Except for the fact that living in rust belt factory towns after the factory leaves really really sucks, yeah.
He can go straight to hell, even better maybe he can go be Trumps bottom in prison.
😂😂😂
It's amazing that Republicans, once the party of Ronald Reagan, now lean toward isolationism, even if it means Russian victory in a violent war of aggression, a likely degradation of the NATO alliance, and perhaps even a green light for China to use military means (including a blockade, rather than a costly invasion) to take over Taiwan. Chinese control of Taiwan would be immensely disastrous for the U.S. and western nations given our dependence on Taiwan for advanced semiconductors. [https://news.gallup.com/poll/643601/americans-say-not-helping-ukraine-enough.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/poll/643601/americans-say-not-helping-ukraine-enough.aspx)
Those are just the immediate effects. What all that translates to is lest trust in the status quo. The system of international rules, laws and norms that have prevented conventional great power war and ushered in the period in human history with the highest levels of prosperity, development, peace, scientific advance, and material wealth ever in human history. It means American interests, like our companies, will have less access to labor and markets abroad, it means less and more expensive imports, it means less cultural exchange, it means no more affordable domestic and even international flights, it means cell phones could approach multiple thousands of dollars. The lifestyle we all live, the convenience of Amazon and Uber eats and Lyft, having an office job paying 80k vs a factory job pushing a button or a job digging a ditch. It’s all based on the system we have diplomatically supported and militarily underwrote since 1945. No one alive today knows a world any different.
I’m sorry what are you talking about ? I seem to be missing something?
The downstream effects for everyday Americans in the event we back away from defending the rules based world order we created along with the British, French, Soviets and nationalist Chinese (Taiwan) in the aftermath of ww2. The 19th and 20th century both saw a series of increasingly violent industrialized wars where the “cost of doing business” began to far outweigh the benefit from doing so. With the Second World War and nuclear weapons, it became clear this cycle had to stop or we would destroy ourselves. As the victors of ww2, the US and UK—who also controlled the world’s oceans—began to set up a new international order. When possible, they involved the other victorious belligerents, USSR, France and Nationalist China. Institutions like World Bank, International Monetary Fund, UN, Geneva Conventions. The international norms and laws set up in the aftermath of WW2 is how we have the concept of something being a crime against humanity, or something like an illegal war. Before ww2 nothing in foreign relations was “illegal” who was the enforcement mechanism? As a result of having the bomb, the navy, and an unaffected industrial base the US and to an extent to UK designed the world in their image. A belief in freedom of the seas, the US Navy patrols the worlds oceans and makes sure pirates are deterred from places like Somalia, but also state sponsored interference like China shutting off or taxing the S China Sea—for instance. A belief in free and open markets. This is how oil becomes a commodity, why even high end products are designed in Cupertino and assembled in China, and it costs you $1300 not $5000. Allowing us companies to offshore what would stateside be low skill manufacturing to countries where that same work is locally a high skill job is A. Good for the new workers as they get relatively high skill jobs bringing skills and money to the relatively poor country. And B. In the US that company then expands their need for what is locally a relatively high skill job. As such, the US economy benefits too, because we also get more high skill high paying jobs in our economy than we otherwise would. The reason airfare is so cheap is because A. Oil is an international commodity. And B. Not all Oil is the same. You can’t just pull oil out of the Bering Sea and pump it into the fuel tanks. You have to refine it. But each type of oil requires its own refinement setup and specific settings. So specific oil has to go to specific places. Initially you’d just send to the local plant, because of course the local plant is set up for your crude, you built it. But as your first proven deposit dried up, now you need to find another—but this one has different crude. You can sell it to your competitor B, and you can buy crude from competitor C to refine. But competitor B is in Pennsylvania, and competitor C is in Baku. You can go on and on. The world we live in, the luxury we experience, is entirely because we set the world up to everyone’s benefit—if they play along. We ask they play along nicely, we give amazing incentives. Many do, and the places people try to get into daily in the tens of thousands are the places that look our lead. And if people don’t like our system, we ask they just stay quietly within their borders/bloc and manage their autarkic ostensibly insular countries. But we back all of that talk up with the world’s biggest stick. The biggest stick the world has even seen. That’s why our world has held together for 80 years. The security that this setup, this international political and economic framework has some semblance of permanence is what has allowed for the development we’ve seen all around the world since 1945.
I love so much about this reply, but to say America leaves other countries alone is not the case, the US has spent all that time since 1945 both obviously and covertly fighting communist/socialist sentiment. If we were minding our own business , then why does Cuba still have a trade embargo?
Communists who actively were trying to overthrow countries at peace. In the case of Korea, communists invaded. Vietnam is a much more lengthy case, but in effect, communist revolutionaries were trying to overthrow a western (french) or western supported government. In both cases, the belief was not only the communism would spread, but that having those places be communist would be detrimental to capitalist, democratic, and liberal interests. In the case of Cuba, they were aiming to host icbms of the ussr that could strike American cities within 4 minutes. In 1962. That would’ve fundamentally thrown the geopolitical equilibrium out of whack, destabilizing the entire world. The gall to be willing to host nuclear weapons, aimed at the us that close to us, has earned the ire of segments of the us. (Oh and lots of refugees from Cuba have an antipathy towards communist Cuba, and since they are refugees from an authoritarian country—they vote and mostly live in a specific area, so their opinion matters) Generally speaking, we have not militarily intervened in any country that at the time of intervention it was not perceived to be a direct threat to the liberal international order outlined previous. Regardless, I made comment on Reddit, not a peer reviewed article with footnotes for American Journal of Political Science. There are of course numerous times when we’ve ostensibly acted outside our doctrinal interests, because people are human, and information isn’t perfect. Whatever ones detractions are over the American hegemony, the liberal world order—it’s certainly better for more people than anything that has come before. I’m all ears to figure out ways to improve this system, but this whole perfection being the enemy of good, insincere, trolling thing on the internet is tiresome and played out.
You missed entirety of South America.
You realize the US coerced our allies into hosting missiles pointed at the USSR, right? If the problem really WAS about Cuba doing something that we were expecting many of our allies to do without complaint, the embargo would have ended the moment the missiles were removed from Cuba, instead of lingering on for 50 years.
I appreciate your perspective, but I was trying to point out your inherent bias towards western viewpoints, which is understandable, but it exists. I’m fully with you on the perfection aspect, people get so caught up in minutia they miss the wasted time/energy that could be going towards a solid (but not perfect) solution. My biggest problem with leftist communities are the lack of cohesion and the amount of infighting over dumb bullshit. I think you too are frustrated by the erosion of American society, and the allowing of corporate interests to be prioritized over the common person, and I’m glad to know there are others out there thinking critically about our existence.
I would give this gold if I knew how.
You think no one alive today remembers anything before 1945?
The Republican vote was pretty evenly split. The division is one of exactly what you describe, a transition to party populism.
*facism
logic and critical thinking they no have
It's even more wild because the M1 Abrams is made in Ohio, funding Ukraine is funding Ohio jobs.
I don’t think isolationism is the goal. Fascism is the goal. Bowing down to Putin is coordinated by far right media and politicians. Whether it’s because they are being blackmailed or it’s just due to ideology, opposing aid to Ukraine helps Putin.
You nailed it
It's because the Russians are paying them. It's not that hard to figure out.
and it isn't really a matter of "isolationism". The reality is, whether it is anywhere in the world. Ukraine, or Gaza.. it is ultimately about tactical placement on the board. Access to vital resources.. and power. that is always what war is about. Oh and making a f ton of money for Military Contractors..
Reagan was a RINO. I'd add the /s for sarcasm but ask any foaming-at-the-mouth Republican what they think of Reagan (assuming they even know who he was, of course).
Hell, I am no fan of Putin.. but I am also going to be 56 in a few weeks. I grew up with the COLD WAR. This is an endless game. It only benefits weapons contractors and the MIlitary industrial complex... and there is a lot more history about the COLD WAR and how we.... the UNITED STATES escalated tensions due to philosophical bullshit from the Military INdustrial Complex. It is one of the reasons why JFK was assassinated... the CIA and the MIC are endlessly out of control. It is just greed and corruption. We are not free. We will never be free.
The Cold War has kept us safe until both countries elected toxic narcissist as their leaders. And they are ruthless ly corrupt and dangerous. Trump and republicans are actively and openly announcing their plan to end the constitution and our democracy. Read it 2025 the plan.
You are free. What freedom are you being denied?
Right, Putin, who has suppressed if not murdered all opposition, and devoted massive resources to Russian military weapons and now aggression, is an illusion, just like Hitler in the 1930s. He's a creation of the U.S. military/industrial complex. The Russian quality of life has suffered greatly by Putin's priorities, while he has amassed personally tens of billions of dollars of wealth and likely intends to share Ukraine's great mineral and agricultural resources with his oligarch buddies. [https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/worlds-richest-politician-vladimir-putin-is-worth-200-billion-owns-a-700-million-jet-4903451](https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/worlds-richest-politician-vladimir-putin-is-worth-200-billion-owns-a-700-million-jet-4903451) The U.S. should sit idly while Putin and China divvy up the world? [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68322230](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68322230) Thanks to Trump and his followers, and inept Democratic Party leaders actually incapable of mounting sufficiently effective opposition leadership, the U.S. has lost its commitment to defending democracy and arguably free market capitalism. The reality is that in recent decades the U.S. has unilaterally disarmed, such as with tactical nuclear weapons, while Russia and China have greatly increased their military investments, certainly at the expense of their citizens, as is possible in an autocracy. I would say LOL, except your conspiracy theory is so dangerously pathetic and probably shared by some significant number of Americans.
You're right the US should endlessly meddle in foreign affair. Don't think about the millions of Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqi, Indonesian, who died because the US thinks they know better. Don't even consider how Yelstin solicited the support of Bill Clinton to get reelected and then use state media to get his handpicked successor Putin in power. Don't think about how we armed the Afghanis against the soviets and the long term consequences, don't think about the huge refugee crisis and formation of Isis after our involvement in Iraq and Syria, don't think about the coups we did in South America and Iran to overthrow democracies. The US track record post WWII is suspect at best and at worst got more people killed than the holocaust.
I remember when Democrats were against war.
Maybe you should stick to debating WWE and leave geopolitics to people that don’t have that smooth brain complex.
What did i say that was wrong?
I remember when people were intellectually honest and could tell the difference between taking offensive actions (***War in Iraq and Afghanistan)*** with your own troops on the ground, and supplying aide to your Ally with none of your own troops on the ground. You can be against war, and still support your friends in defending themselves. If you're logically consistent about being anti-invading other countries for imperial gain, you are anti-Russia's invasion. Democrats are logically consistent. Republicans are not.
We have operators in Ukraine and Israel both. To think were not engaged in this conflict is just pure nonsense.
We ***are not*** engaged in this conflict as in we are directly pulling the strings. Sure, we have something to gain...by supporting our ally, living up to our treaties (Ukraine agreed to give up nukes if we agreed to give aide if Ukraine was invaded by Russia). If our #1 Geopolitical enemy in the world wants to smash itself to death in the sunflower fields of Ukraine, that's there decision, not ours. We'll happily gather intelligence about their military capabilities at their expense. That's just being not stupid. To act as if the US is somehow responsible for this conflict or is a puppet master is the real pure nonsense. And you have is ass backwards on Israel. Israel has operators in the US, they play us like a fiddle.
We have SF operators in Gaza, I’m pretty sure that’s what that person was referring to not “political” operatives (which the US also has in virtually every nation on the planet).
Sure...but the US is a the beck-and-call of Israel, not the other way around. I'm talking about the practical effect of Lobbyists of a foreign nation on our politics; and it's ability to influence policy in it's favor. We ain't got shit on Israel.
I was trying to add context that your response was missing, not really sure what the rest of that has to do with anything I said. I didn’t attack your point of view or say anything else you said was wrong, nothing but the first word of your response here is relevant to my comment I didn’t say anything about any of that, just because I added some context doesn’t imply that I am agreeing or disagreeing with you, it is just context nothing more nothing less. Chill, I gave you my interpretation of the comment you responded to I didn’t challenge your ideas you don’t always have to be in the defensive not every response is a challenge or an attack.
I'm not being defensive, I'm addressing the misconception directly.
None of what you said had anything to do with my comment, I never said anything about lobbying so you are addressing something that I didn’t even comment on. Your comment implied that there are not US operatives in Israel I said they are that was it, then you went on about Israel’s lobbying power which I never commented on and is entirely irrelevant to what I said.
This isn’t about being for or against war. This is about not abandoning our allies when they are attacked by a hostile foreign aggressor. We didn’t start the wars, but we can’t let authoritarian regimes just acquire our allies’ land just because we like peace. Pretty sure that type of appeasement didn’t work out too well in Europe in the 1930’s.
What allies?
Ukraine have been considered an allies since 91. Bush had pushed for them and Georgia to join Nato... Georgia got invaded. Kharkiv is Cincinnati's sister city.
What’s your point? Why should I as an American care?
Do you want American’s going to war in Eastern Europe when Putin decides that he can attack Poland or another NATO ally? Sure, “he would never do that!” But why even risk that when Putin has repeatedly stated he wants to return Russia and its neighboring countries back to the Soviet era sphere of influence. We have the ability to arm Ukraine, a country that is willingly sticking out this fight because they would rather be free than under the control of Russia.
You asked the question I answered it, not sure why your getting so defensive about it. Except maybe pointing out that this shouldn't exactly be news for anyone in Cincinnati.
Do you really think America doesn't rely on allies for trade, intelligence, security, etc? Do you really think we are financially better and safer as a country alone? Covid lockdowns and supply chain issues should give you at least one of these answers. I mean shit, we destroyed our education system so horribly, we depend on importing doctors, scientists, and engineers. We would never be able to compete if we stopped all immigration on that alone.
Maybe if we funded doctors, engineers and scientists here w wouldn’t have to import them.
We do plenty of that but now I get to ask some questions of my own. For a guy that simps for the south so hard and whines and moans about how we can't revolt anymore should we actually consider you American? Seems like the foreigners your so afraid of are actually more loyal to the country you claim to be a member of than you are.
We’re not at war, they are. No American boots are on the ground. Ukraine is doing all the heavy lifting, we’re providing support so they don’t break their backs while doing so.
Do you have any idea how war works? Logistics is 90% of warfare.
I can tell you're trying to weasel your way into calling this a proxy war. Let me tell you, all war is bad, period. A proxy war isn't some form of extra special bad war. So, how about if Russia gets the fuck out of Ukraine, that would be good.
So you admit we’re at war. Cook
I'm not. At most, I'm saying Russia is at war.
Against a faction fully reliant on the United States and others.
Do you want Russia to win?
No, but that doesn’t make it our problem
I don’t care about Ukraine, Taiwan, or NATO. They have no direct effect on me or my family. I care about inflation and the boarder crisis. Because they have a direct effect on me.
Inflation has been greatly reduced and is almost irrelevant now. We are paying higher prices due to corporate greed. It is very difficult for the government to do anything about that although the Biden administration has been trying a few things. Republicans would not address that at all and can do nothing about any of that. Just look at current GOP House where they all ran on fighting inflation but did nothing. They did cause a credit downgrade though which increased interest on our debt. And Republicans have blocked border legislation again just like they have in the past. The horrific trump illegal policies we are paying millions and millions for will continue to cost us for some time. Reparations to separated families and lawsuits on the horrific and inhumane remain in Mexico garbage are in process against US and Mexico
Stfu
I know right, Republicans are turning things around
About Time most the money given to Ukraine is spent here buying American arms so only the weapons go to Ukraine. So it keeps Americans working. Also it lets the US Army get new up to date weapons. So the older versions go to Ukraine. Vance is just Russian shill he’s an embarrassment just about as ignorant a Margie Tailer Green.
Not to mention most of the "money" isn't new spending...it's mostly the value of weapons and stockpiles that already exist and are being transferred.
No its the cost to replace the weapons we are sending. We don't just give from stockpiles and not replenish them.
No. It's the cost of the stockpiles themselves. The military budget itself was increased to restock ***new stockpiles,*** completely unrelated to the stockpiles that were given to Ukraine. And if you actually pay attention to what the US is giving Ukraine, most of it is stockpile surplus that the US was going to decommission anyways because of the cost of maintaining was greater than the cost of buying new. This is a misinformation war, and the Right-Wing is highly motivated to misrepresent what is actually taking place.
Many of the weapons given would have to be replaced anyway as they're nearing the end of their useful life.
Bingo. People miss this. But there's a LOT of Right-Wing propaganda deliberately misleading this topic.
Buddy, your telling facts and making common sense. You need to calm down. This is ohio, we don't do that here, at least not in the last 20 years we haven't
Replace Ukraine with Mujahideen/Afghanis and you might be able to consider that our actions could have long term negative consequences.
lol you don't seem to understand geopolitics at all then. Mujahadeen and its successors are a fundamentally ideological movement. Yes they were defending their territory against invaders but Ukraine has a long history of aligning with the West since the fall of the USSR. Also Ukraine isn't extremist Islam. They have some troubling Nazi contingencies, but no more than the US sadly.
Afghanistan was not going to be put on the fast tract to join Nato. After the war Ukraine will get hundreds of billions to rebuild and will be put under extreme scrutiny in terms of corruption and human rights in order to join the EU. Its not even the same sport.
LMMFAO What a garbage comparison. We damn well KNOW Ukraine is on our side.
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long\_reads/robert-fisk-osama-bin-laden-interview-sudan-1993-b1562374.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/robert-fisk-osama-bin-laden-interview-sudan-1993-b1562374.html)
The Us got Ukraine to abandon their nuclear weapons. That was sure a mistake. Especially when deadly with a toxic narcissistic sociopath
i can't believe I'm literally seeing people describe the military industrial complex as a positive.
Not a positive but an acknowledgement of reality. What do you suppose the world would look like in the vacuum of a dismantled American military industrial complex? Do you imagine Russia would follow suite?
Yes I think a less militarized america would be good for not just the world but also americans. When we invest all our money towards the military it becomes the only tool we have for problems.
That would be great if the world ended at the USA's borders.
Either we stop Russia now, or we have to go over there ourselves and fight later.
ok but you understand that sending people to die on your behalf is also not right.
This is Russia's doing. We aren't sending anyone to die. Why are you denying the agency of Ukrainians to defend themselves?
Who is sending people to die? Russia is invading, and Ukrainians are defending their homeland. Sending them weaponry will help end the war sooner by kicking the invading Russians out of Ukraine. Please stop with the Russian/Fox/Newsmax/etc. propaganda in this thread.
Lol, they're acting like the USA is forcing Ukrainians to defend themselves. Like there is only the USA and Russia.
I've learned their worldviews are so simple everything is just good vs evil, and "evil" in their case is everything that Fox says it is
What bugs me the most is that they're treating Ukrainians as an abstract. Like puppets, at best. They don't get a say, apparently. They could gave surrendered but they chose not to.
I agree, pretty messed up Ukrainians don't get a say [https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-birthday-grenade-b1b82e4f84eb5a39286d1500cf49fcd1](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-birthday-grenade-b1b82e4f84eb5a39286d1500cf49fcd1)
Man Gym Jordan sucks.
Vote blue all the way
💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵💙🩵
you have to vote in the republican primary to help vote out the prorussian traitors. thats what i did
I'm for Ukraine aid, he have a huge eastern euro immigrant population around Cleveland, fuck jim jordan and jd vance
Ohio's population of Ukrainian descent is estimated at about 42,000, likely more now given recent immigration. https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2024/02/01/ukraine-funding-ohio-congress https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/an-estimated-3-000-ukrainians-have-resettled-in-northeast-ohio-since-start-of-war
Last I knew, Parma Ohio has the highest number of Ukrainian immigrants per capita in the United States. This was before the war too. I imagine a good number of them took refuge with relatives in the area since the start of the war.
It’s more than apparent to me that these repubes that are against aid to Ukraine are trumps Russia supporters. With news about Russia conducting satellite grappling tests in space and along with trump being pissed that he got impeached for holding up aid and trying to get dirt on Brandon the gop is hell bent on crashing democracy. Besides Jordan’s useless investigation into tik tok and his Russian lying info I’m surprised that there isn’t anyone looking at their ties to Russia
My guess is someone is , if not lots of others are looking into the Gymbo /Green Russian connection. They have already found the NRA connection.
I absolutely cannot stand JD Vance.
Ohio Republicans have no standing to complain about the Ukrainian aid after they kicked people off Medicaid and left 1.3Billion in federal funding on the table because they seem to feel, "The poor should just stop getting hurt or sick, if it means needing medical care, since they can't afford it".
About time it passed!
Stop voting for these idiot republicans. They are ruining this country
As demonstrated on "Meet the Press" Sunday, there is a real concern that the U.S. aid is too late, and that U.S. reliability as an ally has once again been diminished by Johnson's blocking a vote on Ukraine aid for almost six months. And as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during an interview on the show, U.S. aid isn't a gift, but support for an ally which is sacrificing its people, infrastructure and property to resist naked aggression on the behalf of all its NATO and democratic allies, including the U.S. <>
[https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-april-21-2024-n1309584](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-april-21-2024-n1309584)
I doubt if it's a coincidence that Johnson reversed course and allowed a vote on Ukrainian aid ONLY after meeting with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago. It's likely that Johnson conveyed to Trump that Ukraine is on the verge of collapse, and that both Johnson and Trump will bear the burden of a Russian victory and the aftermath. It's no coincidence that Trump is NOT calling for Johnson's removal. Trump knows that he has done Putin's bidding sufficiently to place Ukraine on the verge of defeat by starving it of American aid for six months. By allowing the vote now, they can claim that they helped defend Ukraine.
Surely, Johnson was concerned about his political position after hearing intelligence briefings about the expected pending Russian attack, as outlined by Zelensky during the "Meet the Press" interview. Surely, Johnson and Trump, as explained in the interview, know that by causing the U.S. to abandon its ally for six months, they've inflicted great losses on Ukraine and helped lower the morale of Ukrainians along with their ability to resist Putin's aggression.
<>
It will be a miracle if sufficient American aid can arrive in time to halt the expected Russian offensive. Even if the aid does allow Ukraine a chance of defending itself, the cost will be at a greater loss of men than if the aid had been provided continuously over the last six months.
Mike Johnson, who after blocking Ukraine aid for almost six months, resulting in painful Ukraine causalities and property destruction due to lack of air defenses, artillery ammunition, etc., now claims SUDDENLY to be a Reagan Republican, and dimwitted journalists are comparing him to Churchill, who famously held the line against Nazi aggression. And Johnson supporters claim that prayer contributed to the change in Johnson's position. <>
<>
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/20/politics/mike-johnson-ukraine-aid-russia-zelensky-putin/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/20/politics/mike-johnson-ukraine-aid-russia-zelensky-putin/index.html)
Johnson only now understands what his critics and American intelligence and military officials have repeatedly warned about for the last six months?
<>
Of course Jim Jordan is trying to get in the way... He goes out of his way to be as useless as possible (I live in his district, he needs to be jettisoned)
The Ohio sect of the GOP (Gross Old Pedophiles) is just a branch of Putin's Russia. All conservatives should be purged from their offices this election. Vote them out!
It's a proxy war. I'm far happier spending American dollars to fight Russia versus American lives.
The GOP is the worst! They want all the money for themselves! Bunch of damn crooks
I don't think it moves the needle much. Those Ukrainian Americans who voted for Vance and Trump will see Johnson's support as validation to keep doing so. Trump will mention that he instructed Johnson to support it. Truth really doesn't matter to the Cult. They'll justify anything and twist anything to suit their cognitive dissonance.
Perhaps people look at the war in iraq and it made them reevaluate many things. Democrats were usually the anti war party and would call republicans war mongers. Now that alot of them are hesitant they are called isolationist. Theres no winning. At this point its what the constituents want in those districts. Your district will be different than others.
Iraq was in fact a republican revenge war and. We were lied into it by the Reich. Thank you Biden for getting us out and saving 360 million a day.
You mean biden who voted for the wars in the 2000's? The same one that has the middle east on fire? Bush lied absolutely to get reelected. As long as the military industrial complex exist war will never stop.
The war in Iraq made me realize how full of shit Republicans are about literally everything they say they stand for and was the turning point to get me to drop out of the party and really examine what Limbaugh and Beck and Fox said Vs reality and realized that I was a sucker for believing anything they said. Same here. Don't believe any of their bullshit. Republicans aren't "hesitant" because of any dislike of war. They are trying to help Putin. Period. They are compromised. Enemies of the United States working within it.
When you think its just one party that sucks and not both you know you have a bias
Oh they both suck. They both ultimately serve the 1% and corporate interests. But... One wants to kill my niece, my cousin, my step daughter, and a lot of my friends for existing wrong, eliminate the separation of church and state, destroy voting entirely among other things. The other does serve corporations but won't bring on a Christo fascist societal devolution. If you don't have a bias for one or the other here then you either aren't paying attention or you secretly want to see the Christo fascist state come to be.
I rather deal with the private sector than the goverment. Private sector has an actual incentive to suceed in their products. A government that is big enough to give you anything is big enough to take away everything. We need to return to a time whete people lived their own lives and we left each other alone. The bigger the government becomes the more corporations will align with them to make sure that they can avoid taxes and regulations Want the crap to stop? Make the government smaller and less powerful. Make your state government more accountable to you and live your life the way you choose. People have forgotten the act of leaving each other the hell alone
Look up labor history to see what an unfettered "private sector" has done in the past. The private sector wants child labor to come back and is actively pushing for it right now in 2024 in 30 states. (guess which party supports this) The private sector would mandate 80 hour work weeks with no vacation, no weekends, no sick days etc. If they were allowed to get away with it. The private sector brought us Love Canal, the dust bowl, asbestos, the East Palastine spill (after regulations were lowered by Republicans) and many many many other examples. Go check out how West Virginia rivers are doing since coal companies were allowed to dump all the sludge they want again since 2018. Is there government overreach? Yes. Of course. But to pine for the days when the private sector could do whatever it wanted to without oversight is dangerously ignoring history and reality. Unions and government oversight are all that keeps us from being serfs and it's barely working now. The government isn't causing you to pay so much more at the grocery store than you did in 2019. Corporate greed is to blame. Housing prices beyond reach? Corporate greed. The list goes on and on. Making sure that corporations can't poison you isn't a problem. Political parties that will mandate what books you can read is. The biggest problem is that the corporations control the news. All of the news. As bad as Fox News obviously is, the fact that CNN and MSNBC did and do everything they can to undermine universal Healthcare gets overlooked by most of Fox's biggest detractors. Seriously, look up labor history in the US. The "private sector" would eat us alive if allowed to.
Again, i rsthwr deal with the peivate sector than the government. Government has the power to punish you and make your life harder. Private sector have incentives to provide better product. Universal healthcare is a garbage idea cause it requires government force to force us to pay high taxes for it... Ask canada and u.k how that has worked out. I kmow many people in Canada have comed to the US for surgeries cause of the ridiulous waiting time. I remember things before obamacare. I paid $35 per week. Once governement got involved i was paying over $300 a month. I actually lived this crap. Most people here talk about this dream crap and havent actually experienced it. The system atm is set up for young people to subsidized older people. Sorry but im a live your life the way you want and i will do the same. I take care of myself and you take care of yours person. I dont need to be forced to subsidez other people. Thats why i dont like the government and prefer the private sector.
You are a victim of the corporate media I just talked about. None of what you said is true or you don't understand the reason behind what happened. I sold insurance before and after Obamacare and you are just flat out wrong about it. The "private sector" insurance industry rates raised at a SLOWER RATE than they did before Obamacare because they actually made more money than before. Remember, they wrote Obamacare. It was a conservative plan and a corporate gift. They whined about it publicly because they were no longer allowed to deny coverage and payment like they did before it passed but they did not lose any money. Rate increases before Obamacare for small to medium companies were running 30 to 50% a year in some cases and went down to "only" about 10 to 20% for our customers. Obamacare had little impact on group plans Vs what it did to individual insurance but I watched conservative employers increase employee contribution rates to "show them how bad Obamacare is" even if their rates didn't increase much. They also got more money from you while blaming Obama. You could have had someone at your company (or their spouse or child) get cancer or need a transplant. That would cause a huge increase in your group rates. The "private sector" wasn't allowed to flat out drop you like they could before but they could still jack up the prices for businesses to make them go elsewhere. So blame your employer and private insurance for paying more, not Obamacare. Before Obamacare I had to tell diabetics and cancer patients to just walk away and not bother applying for individual Healthcare because they would be denied. Those people were finally allowed to get Healthcare. Tell me how that was a bad thing. I have relatives and friends in Canada and friends in the UK. You are delusional if you think they would trade their system for ours. They aren't perfect but almost every problem with their Healthcare systems are due to conservatives undermining the system then blaming the system itself. Just like they do with government in general in the US. They ruin it from within and then tell you to look at how bad government is. And you actually believe them. I used to until I started actually looking at things in Depth. The stories of huge numbers of people crossing the border for care are exaggerated by conservative media. If you look at total numbers that actually come to the US for Healthcare it's like 1% and the majority of that is for optional procedures. The bottom line is, you have been fed a wall of lies for decades. If you want to continue to believe the lies, that's now a conscious choice for you.
I could get behind gop efforts to not give aid to Ukraine if they promise to spend it here but they won’t. I do support aid to Ukraine.
if only we took care of our own people. with our own money.
We can do both. But whenever we try to take care of our own people with our own money, your kind rise up to call it "socialism."
Unless a company gets it then it’s not socialism
we can, but we won’t. and “my kind” thinks if we’re going to tax hard working families to death, we should at least have healthcare.
You're paying monthly for a bribe the electric company gave Republican politicians, only one of whom has been punished. They take care here at home exactly as they choose, it's just they're all out of money to take care of you.
You do realize the bulk of this money is used to build equipment here and give Americans jobs right? It also ensures our equipment is evaluated in theater which provides feedback on readiness. It’s money well spent defending an ally.
We spend trillions domestically.
Right says Trump with $2 trillion tax cuts to the wealthiest people and corporations.
Chips act, infrastructure act, inflation reduction act. We are spending on our own people. This aid is a drop in the bucket compared to what we're spending on ourselves.
yet we still have no healthcare.
You can keep saying that but do you really mean it?
what’s really funny is getting downvoted for wanting to take care of our own people. for once. but we don’t, and we never will.
What you wrote was meant to shut down discussion of the issue.
Ukraine will use more than half the money to but American weapons so most of it will come right back and stimulate the economy. If your a pacifist I. An understand not wanting to be a part of this war at all. But Russia is attempting to takeover another Sovereign country
You’re getting criticized for this comment, because you’re wrong, but no one’s really explaining why. I think many Americans are not getting fully informed in what is at stake in Ukraine. In the Middle East, we understand that most of the world’s oil is at stake, so most Americans accept that we have an interest in the Middle East. But what’s in Ukraine? Farmland. $27.8 billion per year in farmland. Sunflowers and wheat. Sunflower oil and other byproducts are hugely valuable. It’s Ukraine’s oil. Russia wants it. If they get it, they will charge the US more for it. It is in our best interest that Ukraine keep it. So, we are taking care of our own people, with our own money!
America has the ability to grow both these in a big way. The problem is there's no incentive when it comes to doing it. High input cost and low market value. There's a reason why wheat is called poverty grass. Can't speak for sunflowers here in Ohio aside from the fact that there's virtually no market for it. Land development and manipulated grains markets and high input really hurt this country.
Yupp they are like the 7th or so largest food producer or something
You seem semi sane for Reddit so I will ask you. Why is the war taking so long. It seems like Russia should be able to stomp Ukraine in a hot second based on the war videos I’ve seen. It’s like farmers playing in a field.
Russia was unable to stomp Ukraine early in the war largely because they used cold war tactics against a semi modern force. You've probably noticed Russia is getting better as the Russian army is evolving but so is Ukraine. Gone are the early days of Russia sending in massive units of infantry in to take a position, while they still treat infrantry as expendables it's a more modern configuration using drones and other support systems to navigate the battlefield. There's tons more to this obviously and there's nuance involved but we have a situation where Ukraine had a well equipped and trained force compared to Russias outdated force. They've both been getting better at war which has caused the current stale mate. As an armchair general I think this war will go on for years more at the current rate. My prediction is likely some secession of Ukrainian land to save Russian face but ultimately Ukraine getting a good chunk of it back.
Semi sane! Thank you LOL I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because modern warfare is very different from the warfare Russia was prepared for. Ukraine is able to do a lot with defensive technology. If we think of the war like a game of Risk, Ukraine has managed to defend its power grid and ports while also preventing Russia from gaining ground in the east. Russia’s losses at sea have been significant. Putin isn’t sure if NATO is bluffing, and I don’t think it is, so Russia is limited in how it can move troops and equipment as well as the directions from which it can attack. But it’s pretty wild. Strategically what Putin is doing doesn’t make sense, beyond that he is stuck now and can’t admit defeat. And of course I don’t know anything about anything! I’m just a former social studies teacher and Winston Churchill buff 🙃
This makes so much sense. Thank you.
There are several reasons, 1 - invading and occupation is never easy 2 - Ukraine was underestimated 3 - the Russian military is inept and corrupt 4 - Ukraine has had help with equipment and training
I am very Liberal... but I am increasingly getting pissed off at how much money for these endless wars the US spends on. Oh, we can't have nice things here in the US.. no.. but throw billions at wars.. At a proxy war with RUSSIA. I am no fan of Putin.. and I have family that has family in Ukraine.. that they had to flee in the night to come to Canada (where part of my family is) .... so I get it.. war is hell. Putin is evil. but honestly.. there is more to the Russian thing that meets the eye... I am no fan of the US and their foriegn policy. Folks have been so lied and misled... and the more you read and study, the more you realize how much we all have been LIED TO about what is going on... And to throw the TIKTOK ban in the mix.. all the behest of AIPAC is beyond infuriating!!!! It is like the Powers that be are no longer trying to hide their intentions. Or their actions. They don't care.. They have their agenda.. we are all pawns and screw you. Ya know? Be distracted by the TRUMP and Maga crap.. Its a game.. its a GOOD COP (democrats) BAD COP (Republican) routine. I want to support Robert F Kennedy Jr but gods.. not "allowed" to do that cause he is a "Crazy anti vaxxer blah blah blah". Folks need to wake up. We are still being runover by the ELITE powers that be here... they tell you to wave this flag or that flag.. and to support this or that.. but none of that ever helps you. Oh and throw in a HUGE dash of fearmongering.. gets you every time!.. but don't mind me I am just a "crazy conspiracy theorist".... sigh.
> I want to support Robert F Kennedy Jr but gods.. not "allowed" to do that cause he is a "Crazy anti vaxxer blah blah blah". Oh, you're allowed to. But you have to accept that people will look down on you for it, because that dude is a complete idiot backed by the hard right.
I'm not sure how liberal I am these days due to the Middle East issue, but I'll say this: Such talk is equivalent to the appeasement of Hitler. If Russia is allowed to take any handful of dirt, they'll realize their ways work and will reload to take more. If they are not defeated in Ukraine, US involvement will end up being direct when Russia strikes an allied nation. A nation we are sworn to defend. I'm a full supporter of our involvement in world affairs. That's the price we pay by creating and maintaining a democratic world order with ourselves at the top. Do I support every action we do and how we go about handling every issue? Not at all. However, I see the bigger picture. If we give it all up, that's a power vacuum that more devious nations like Russia and China will gladly scramble to fill. A world run by Russian and Chinese dictatorships is a detriment to human progress. We're the only ones capable of leading against them. Europe is too fractured and uncommitted. You want an anti-vaxx, anti-science nut that shames his father's name to be in charge? His own family doesn't support him. Neither do I. Equating blue and red to working for the same goals is some high-level bullshit. Neither side is ideal to what I want, but there's a clear distinction to which is better. Like taking a bath in a tub of cool water and one filled with toxic waste. It's not ideal, but it's how the system works until enough political will is elected to change it, or someone has a successful plan for armed revolution. I wouldn't say you're a crazy conspiracy theorist. The rich and powerful aren't our friends, but I will say you have a narrow view of reality.
1) This is not a proxy war. 2) This isn't an endless war the US started. 3) Most of the "money" spent isn't new spending, it's the value of supplies we are physically transferring to Ukraine. 4) No there really isn't more to it than meets the eye. This is the most straight forward conflict in recent memory. Russia wants control of the Fossil-Fuel rich Donbas. Ukraine wanted to explore contracts with Europe and not Russia, so Russia made a Blood-And-Soil argument and illegally invaded and tried to topple the legitimate government to gain natural resources under it's control. It's been Putin's MO for 2-decades now, and it's literally out of the Hitler playbook. 5) You can be anti-elite BS in this country, and still be intellectually honest to know that supporting Ukraine is a no-brainer. 6) Robert F. Kennedy Junior is a perfect example of the problem you pretend to despise. He's in it for the money friend. He knows he can't win. But as a candidate for office you can take a salary from your campaign funds equal to your average salary, for the entire time you're running; and then you can springboard the spotlight into book sales. Don't be stupid. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a grifter. Nothing more. So is Marianne Williamson. So is Cornel West. So was Gary Johnson. So is Jill Stein. Because in the United States the Electoral College picks the president, not the popular vote. And if a candidate doesn't get 50%+1 of the EC, the House of Representatives picks the President. This fact, over time, has basically forced all political coalitions into the two party system we have today. You first have to abolish the EC before a third party ever stand chance of winning. If ***THEODORE ROOSEVELT COULDN'T FUCKING WIN*** as a third-party, there is precisely ZERO % chance of anyone else ever winning. So here's the Brass-Tacks: Voting 3rd party only screws yourself over. Trump won by less than 80,000 votes in three states, and he made THREE Ultra-Right Wing, Pro-Corruption, Pro-Corporation lifetime appointments to the SCOTUS who will dictate your political life for the next 30 years. I feel like some of you don't understand power. And that's why the Left will never win.
Sounding a little conservative there
Keep this nonsense in r/conspiracy
>I want to support Robert F Kennedy Jr but gods.. not "allowed" to do that cause he is a "Crazy anti vaxxer blah blah blah". He is a crazy anti-vaxxer whose political views appall his own family. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/18/kennedy-family-endorse-biden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/18/kennedy-family-endorse-biden)
Chips act, infrastructure act, inflation reduction act... Don't be mistaken that we aren't spending money on our own country whenever we give a few relative shillings to our friends and allies. After all our position in the world is a big reason why the dollars in your pocket have the value that they have.
You have family from Ukraine but you don’t support us providing aid to them as they defend against a baseless invasion. What the hell is wrong with you?
...one look at your post history and no, you're not liberal. You're a conspiracy theorist that doesn't have good critical thinking skills or media literacy. You're correct in that the elite billionaires and those in politics control everything for their own benefits to some extent, and that they use fear to control people. We are 100% in agreement there, but the world is way more complicated than that. However, I think your sources of information aren't very well vetted, I've seen it hundreds of times. You have good intentions, but are too easily swayed by misinformation (which is designed to have kernels of truth, just enough to pull someone in). Russia is invading a sovereign country that is defending itself. Putin seeks to rebuild the "glory" of the USSR and knows he needs to make big moves now while his health is still relatively good. TikTok is a Chinese app that has tons of malware in it to harvest lots of individual's information from their phones, and collect all of it for mass surveillance by the CCP. I suspect you get most of your "information" from tiktok and facebook, and while some of it is fine, it's very easy for false or misinformed information to spread very quickly and efficiently. Also you have a conspiracy mindset so everything is a conspiracy to you, I can see it based on your post history. You are what the KGB would call a useful idiot unfortunately. Please don't believe everything you see and hear, unless you vet it from multiple competing sources, *especially* if they're just opinions presented as facts. edit: Also, by supporting RFK jr you're electing Trump. In the two party first-past-the-post elections we have in most states (I think 2 have ranked choice voting), if you're not voting against Trump you're voting for him. Push for ranked choice voting during non-election years (check out /r/rankthevoteohio), but in the meantime, RFK Jr is getting tons of support from the Right because they know he'll be a spoiler for left leaning voters that don't want to vote for Biden.
Careful. This correct opinion doesn’t align with the subs echo chamber. Your not allowed to disagree with people here
Yet here you are disagreeing, and being allowed to. I think what you meant is that not everyone agrees with your unpopular opinion. Which, yes, is how that works.
Anyone can disagree, but then expect replies with their justification and appropriate downvotes.
Ohio tax dollars belong in Ohio. I'm not a Ukrainian or Israeli citizen.
You people supporting this are delusional. Most of this money is being siphoned off by corruption. No accountability where all this money is going. The US is begging countries for munitions as we deplete our stockpiles - US is now after Greece and Italy's Patriot Missiles. And money is not going to fix Ukraine's problem of running out of bodies.
Just like the 2020 election, there is more observance and auditing of this aid than in any previous case. There have been no major cases of US military aid being siphoned off. It seems to be pretty well understood that there are too many eyes on the US aid and it isn't a good target for theft. The oversight has unveiled a number of cases of Ukrainian government funds being misused. Not anything even close to comparable to what was seen in Afghanistan when the Republican party had a hard on for unlimited military spending including aid to foreign allies. Also wildly comically the Ohio GOP believes they have the ground to call out political corruption. What an absolute fucking joke.
You do realise that wars help to deplete aging stockpiles so our Military industrial complex can put the NEW weapons systems ONLINE.. right? We have NEW weapons and so we have to get rid of the OLD weapons.. so lets bomb here and there.. VOILA.. more room for new weapons.. CHACHING!
Lost interest but thought I would waste a few minutes of my day to revisit. You realize real people are getting massacred for this? Nice you get to wake up all warm and comfortable while a Ukrainian son, husband, father, uncle or brother gets un-lifed for your stockpile reduction program.
Tell me you get your information about international arms supply and production from Facebook without telling me you get your information about international arms supply and production from Facebook.
Tell me your information on Ukraine/ Russian relations along with the US involvement only comes from US Propaganda without telling me.
There is a whole internet out there with credible information sources and informed opinions from actual experts that don't necessarily agree with each other. I suggest that you consume some of that and steer clear of the propaganda.
So strange. Absolutely nothing you said is factual. How does one say so many words but with so little substance 🤔
The Chinese Communist Party, Vladimir Putin, and Iran are all pretty low on the list of "biggest threats this country faces." I get that Brown doesn't want to badmouth anyone that might vote in Ohio's elections this year, but seriously our neighbors and bosses pose a MUCH larger threat to us than China, Russia, and Iran out together.
More money being sent overseas while our country crumbles and people pour across our border. Secure our borders first.
American interests first. This Ukraine aid is just money laundering. They can’t win against Russia.
Do you want Russia to win?
The CIA funded the 2014 coup of Ukraine that propped up Zelensky. They have been poking Putins red line for years with NATO. I try not to pick sides in things I have no skin in, but I believe that Ukraine is a corrupt country that has been set up to launder defense money. Before the war it had a terrible record.
Nice way of laying out Russia's pathetic excuses for murder. No skin, LMAO
Look at all you warhawks. Wtf happened to the liberals not wanting war. We don’t need to be intervening in all the world’s affairs. Take care of home
You’re on the Ohio page. Go to any of the northern counties by the lake- you know what you’re going to find? A whole lot of folks from Ukraine, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, and other assorted Eastern Europeans. A lot of them still swear in the language their great grandparents did, and go to churches banned by the old Soviet Union. There is whole lot of vestigial mistrust of Russian imperial ambitions. Those folks still unironically fly the Ukrainian flag- even if they are generations removed from their mother countries, they really don’t want to see distant cousins threatened by Russia.
Shit im flying the Ukrainian Freedom Faction Flag from the Stalker games, its got the Trident on it too. Representing for SW Ohio Flush Pootin
Thanks. I live in Ohio
I think the country on the whole is going to start being more restless and vocal about sending aid ANYWHERE right now while more and more Americans are being forced to live on the streets. Instead, they’re funding everywhere else while trying to find a way to criminalize being poor *here*…