#he will always stay at their site at ukraines site

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

Ze is in Donetsk Oblast

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Thanks Derek Plummer

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 14, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 15, 2024

As the two presidential campaigns position themselves for the final sprint to the election on November 5, the difference between them is dramatic. 

Trump is hunkering down behind what has always appeared to be a plan not to attract voters but instead to create chaos on Election Day. Creating confusion around the election could enable his loyalists to put in place the plan the Trump team concocted in 2020 to throw the election into the House of Representatives or get it before the Supreme Court, stacked as it is with Trump loyalists. 

A central piece of that plan appears to be to rile up his supporters to violence, and a few of them have been delivering. News broke yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had advised federal emergency workers to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, because of concerns about their safety after Trump and MAGA Republicans spread the false rumor that federal agents are forcing people off their land to start lithium mining projects. The alert came after the U.S. Forest Service sent an email to federal responders saying that National Guard troops had encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” FEMA officials will no longer go door-to-door with disaster assistance, but instead will stay in fixed locations. 

A man has been arrested and charged with threatening FEMA workers with an assault rifle. He was released on a $10,000 bond.

To the extent Trump or his running mate Ohio senator J.D. Vance talks about them, their policies are promises to repair what they insist is the damage caused by President Joe Biden (although the stock market hit record highs again today), or threats that reinforce an authoritarian Christian nationalist worldview. Today, Bill Barrow of the Associated Press explored the extensive overlap of Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups and the plans that Trump and Vance have set out. 

Both promise to cut taxes for the wealthy, but Project 2025 has more detail about how. Both plan to cut off immigration and to fire federal workers, replacing them with loyalists. Both say the president can decide not to use the money Congress has appropriated (in 2019, Trump refused to disburse the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine until Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to smear Trump’s chief Democratic rival for the presidency, Joe Biden). Both call for slashing government regulations and getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as well as protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and programs addressing climate change. 

But perhaps most revealing of both Trump’s ideology and his plan for the election was his statement to Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he would like to use the military against what he called “the enemy from within…radical left lunatics" to guard the election. While this is a threat to use the power of the government against his political opponents if he is elected—he mentioned California representative and Senate candidate Adam Schiff by name—it also seems likely his loyalists will hear this as a call for violence at election sites. 

Trump’s statement has not gone unnoticed. 

Tonight, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper posted a dictionary definition of the word “fascism”: “A populist political philosophy, movement…that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.” 

On the show, Tapper pressed Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin to comment on Trump’s statement that as commander-in-chief, he would use the military against political opposition. When Youngkin denied that Trump had said any such thing, Tapper replied: “I’m literally reading his quotes to you.” Youngkin’s willingness to deny what was right in front of him did not exactly quell talk of fascism, since in his dystopian novel 1984 about authoritarianism, George Orwell famously wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

If Trump is hunkering down, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz are still pushing ahead, pressing Trump on both his personal weakness and his now open embrace of fascism. Harris’s advisor Ian Sams went on the Fox News Channel today to note that it’s been a month since Trump “did a mainstream media interview, and we got to wonder why. We called this weekend for him to release his medical records…. Donald Trump’s team, I heard him on your air last hour insisting that everything is okay and that…there’s nothing to see here. And your anchor rightly asked, ‘Well, if that’s true, why not just put them out?’” 

At 1:12 this morning, Trump posted on his social media site: “I believe it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on Cognitive Stamina and Agility. Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her.” Sams hit that as well, noting that in the middle of the night, Trump felt obliged to write about Harris and a cognitive test “[a]s he refuses to release his medical records, sit with 60 Minutes, or debate her again—instead retreating solely to rambling rallies where he’s increasingly making no sense[.] Is he okay?” 

In Erie, Pennsylvania, today, Harris outlined how her proposals for an “opportunity economy” will help Black men, calling for business loans for entrepreneurs, more apprenticeships, rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, and study of diseases that disproportionately affect Black men. 

She also continues her outreach to Republicans. Today, former Trump friend and talk show host Geraldo Rivera endorsed her. So did former Wisconsin Republican state senate majority leader Dale Schultz. “I tell people, ‘Look, I didn’t leave the party. The party left me,’” he said. “This is a critically important race, and…Donald Trump should never be allowed in the Oval Office again.”

Today Harris’s campaign announced she will be sitting down with Fox News Channel reporter Bret Baier for an interview on Wednesday from the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Fox News Channel is scheduled to tape a town hall with Trump in front of an audience of women on Tuesday. It is supposed to air on Wednesday morning, while the Harris interview will air Wednesday night.  

At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, tonight, Harris reiterated Trump’s refusal to talk to any but the right-wing media and recalled his promise to terminate the Constitution. And then she used Trump’s own words against him, playing a video montage of Trump’s calls for violence, his threats against “the enemy within,” and his call for using the military against his political opponents. 

“You heard his words, coming from him,” she told the audience. “[H]e considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country…. He’s saying that he would use the military to go after them…. And we know who he would target because he has attacked them before. Journalists whose stories he doesn’t like. Election officials who refuse to cheat by…finding extra votes for him. Judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous…. Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power, that’s what he’s looking for.”

In Oaks, Pennsylvania, tonight, Trump was supposed to take questions from preselected attendees at a town hall with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. He did, at first, although his answers were all over the place and he urged people to vote on January 5. But then, in the hot and crowded space, two people needed medical attention. Slurring, Trump then said: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” And then he stood on stage and swayed for 39 minutes of songs from his personal playlist before seeming to recall that he was supposed to be talking about the election, which he suddenly told the confused crowd was “the most important election in the history of our country” before turning back to the music.

Rob Crilly of the U.K.’s The Daily Mail wrote: “I was at Trump's golden escalator launch, flew out of Washington with him in 2020 and have probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” The headline over Marianne LeVine’s Washington Post story about the event read: “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town-hall episode.

“The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and called into question his mental acuity.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[bouncinghedgehog]

October 14, 2024 (Monday)

As the two presidential campaigns position themselves for the final sprint to the election on November 5, the difference between them is dramatic.

Trump is hunkering down behind what has always appeared to be a plan not to attract voters but instead to create chaos on Election Day. Creating confusion around the election could enable his loyalists to put in place the plan the Trump team concocted in 2020 to throw the election into the House of Representatives or get it before the Supreme Court, stacked as it is with Trump loyalists.

A central piece of that plan appears to be to rile up his supporters to violence, and a few of them have been delivering. News broke yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had advised federal emergency workers to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, because of concerns about their safety after Trump and MAGA Republicans spread the false rumor that federal agents are forcing people off their land to start lithium mining projects. The alert came after the U.S. Forest Service sent an email to federal responders saying that National Guard troops had encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” FEMA officials will no longer go door-to-door with disaster assistance, but instead will stay in fixed locations.

A man has been arrested and charged with threatening FEMA workers with an assault rifle. He was released on a $10,000 bond.

To the extent Trump or his running mate Ohio senator J.D. Vance talks about them, their policies are promises to repair what they insist is the damage caused by President Joe Biden (although the stock market hit record highs again today), or threats that reinforce an authoritarian Christian nationalist worldview. Today, Bill Barrow of the Associated Press explored the extensive overlap of Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups and the plans that Trump and Vance have set out.

Both promise to cut taxes for the wealthy, but Project 2025 has more detail about how. Both plan to cut off immigration and to fire federal workers, replacing them with loyalists. Both say the president can decide not to use the money Congress has appropriated (in 2019, Trump refused to disburse the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine until Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to smear Trump’s chief Democratic rival for the presidency, Joe Biden). Both call for slashing government regulations and getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as well as protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and programs addressing climate change.

But perhaps most revealing of both Trump’s ideology and his plan for the election was his statement to Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he would like to use the military against what he called “the enemy from within…radical left lunatics" to guard the election. While this is a threat to use the power of the government against his political opponents if he is elected—he mentioned California representative and Senate candidate Adam Schiff by name—it also seems likely his loyalists will hear this as a call for violence at election sites.

Trump’s statement has not gone unnoticed.

Tonight, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper posted a dictionary definition of the word “fascism”: “A populist political philosophy, movement…that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”

On the show, Tapper pressed Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin to comment on Trump’s statement that as commander-in-chief, he would use the military against political opposition. When Youngkin denied that Trump had said any such thing, Tapper replied: “I’m literally reading his quotes to you.” Youngkin’s willingness to deny what was right in front of him did not exactly quell talk of fascism, since in his dystopian novel 1984 about authoritarianism, George Orwell famously wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

If Trump is hunkering down, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz are still pushing ahead, pressing Trump on both his personal weakness and his now open embrace of fascism. Harris’s advisor Ian Sams went on the Fox News Channel today to note that it’s been a month since Trump “did a mainstream media interview, and we got to wonder why. We called this weekend for him to release his medical records…. Donald Trump’s team, I heard him on your air last hour insisting that everything is okay and that…there’s nothing to see here. And your anchor rightly asked, ‘Well, if that’s true, why not just put them out?’”

At 1:12 this morning, Trump posted on his social media site: “I believe it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on Cognitive Stamina and Agility. Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her.” Sams hit that as well, noting that in the middle of the night, Trump felt obliged to write about Harris and a cognitive test “[a]s he refuses to release his medical records, sit with 60 Minutes, or debate her again—instead retreating solely to rambling rallies where he’s increasingly making no sense[.] Is he okay?”

In Erie, Pennsylvania, today, Harris outlined how her proposals for an “opportunity economy” will help Black men, calling for business loans for entrepreneurs, more apprenticeships, rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, and study of diseases that disproportionately affect Black men.

She also continues her outreach to Republicans. Today, former Trump friend and talk show host Geraldo Rivera endorsed her. So did former Wisconsin Republican state senate majority leader Dale Schultz. “I tell people, ‘Look, I didn’t leave the party. The party left me,’” he said. “This is a critically important race, and…Donald Trump should never be allowed in the Oval Office again.”

Today Harris’s campaign announced she will be sitting down with Fox News Channel reporter Bret Baier for an interview on Wednesday from the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Fox News Channel is scheduled to tape a town hall with Trump in front of an audience of women on Tuesday. It is supposed to air on Wednesday morning, while the Harris interview will air Wednesday night.

At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, tonight, Harris reiterated Trump’s refusal to talk to any but the right-wing media and recalled his promise to terminate the Constitution. And then she used Trump’s own words against him, playing a video montage of Trump’s calls for violence, his threats against “the enemy within,” and his call for using the military against his political opponents.

“You heard his words, coming from him,” she told the audience. “[H]e considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country…. He’s saying that he would use the military to go after them…. And we know who he would target because he has attacked them before. Journalists whose stories he doesn’t like. Election officials who refuse to cheat by…finding extra votes for him. Judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous…. Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power, that’s what he’s looking for.”

In Oaks, Pennsylvania, tonight, Trump was supposed to take questions from preselected attendees at a town hall with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. He did, at first, although his answers were all over the place and he urged people to vote on January 5. But then, in the hot and crowded space, two people needed medical attention. Slurring, Trump then said: "Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?" And then he stood on stage and swayed for 39 minutes of songs from his personal playlist before seeming to recall that he was supposed to be talking about the election, which he suddenly told the confused crowd was “the most important election in the history of our country” before turning back to the music.

Rob Crilly of the U.K.’s The Daily Mail wrote: “I was at Trump's golden escalator launch, flew out of Washington with him in 2020 and have probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” The headline over Marianne LeVine’s Washington Post story about the event read: “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town-hall episode.

"The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and called into question his mental acuity.”

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson 10.14

Heather Cox Richardson 10.14

As the two presidential campaigns position themselves for the final sprint to the election on November 5, the difference between them is dramatic. 

Trump is hunkering down behind what has always appeared to be a plan not to attract voters but instead to create chaos on Election Day. Creating confusion around the election could enable his loyalists to put in place the plan the Trump team concocted in 2020 to throw the election into the House of Representatives or get it before the Supreme Court, stacked as it is with Trump loyalists. 

A central piece of that plan appears to be to rile up his supporters to violence, and a few of them have been delivering. News broke yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had advised federal emergency workers to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, because of concerns about their safety after Trump and MAGA Republicans spread the false rumor that federal agents are forcing people off their land to start lithium mining projects. The alert came after the U.S. Forest Service sent an email to federal responders saying that National Guard troops had encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” FEMA officials will no longer go door-to-door with disaster assistance, but instead will stay in fixed locations. 

A man has been arrested and charged with threatening FEMA workers with an assault rifle. He was released on a $10,000 bond.

To the extent Trump or his running mate Ohio senator J.D. Vance talks about them, their policies are promises to repair what they insist is the damage caused by President Joe Biden (although the stock market hit record highs again today), or threats that reinforce an authoritarian Christian nationalist worldview. Today, Bill Barrow of the Associated Press explored the extensive overlap of Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups and the plans that Trump and Vance have set out. 

Both promise to cut taxes for the wealthy, but Project 2025 has more detail about how. Both plan to cut off immigration and to fire federal workers, replacing them with loyalists. Both say the president can decide not to use the money Congress has appropriated (in 2019, Trump refused to disburse the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine until Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to smear Trump’s chief Democratic rival for the presidency, Joe Biden). Both call for slashing government regulations and getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as well as protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and programs addressing climate change. 

But perhaps most revealing of both Trump’s ideology and his plan for the election was his statement to Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he would like to use the military against what he called “the enemy from within…radical left lunatics" to guard the election. While this is a threat to use the power of the government against his political opponents if he is elected—he mentioned California representative and Senate candidate Adam Schiff by name—it also seems likely his loyalists will hear this as a call for violence at election sites. 

Trump’s statement has not gone unnoticed. 

Tonight, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper posted a dictionary definition of the word “fascism”: “A populist political philosophy, movement…that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.” 

On the show, Tapper pressed Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin to comment on Trump’s statement that as commander-in-chief, he would use the military against political opposition. When Youngkin denied that Trump had said any such thing, Tapper replied: “I’m literally reading his quotes to you.” Youngkin’s willingness to deny what was right in front of him did not exactly quell talk of fascism, since in his dystopian novel 1984 about authoritarianism, George Orwell famously wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

If Trump is hunkering down, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz are still pushing ahead, pressing Trump on both his personal weakness and his now open embrace of fascism. Harris’s advisor Ian Sams went on the Fox News Channel today to note that it’s been a month since Trump “did a mainstream media interview, and we got to wonder why. We called this weekend for him to release his medical records…. Donald Trump’s team, I heard him on your air last hour insisting that everything is okay and that…there’s nothing to see here. And your anchor rightly asked, ‘Well, if that’s true, why not just put them out?’” 

At 1:12 this morning, Trump posted on his social media site: “I believe it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on Cognitive Stamina and Agility. Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her.” Sams hit that as well, noting that in the middle of the night, Trump felt obliged to write about Harris and a cognitive test “[a]s he refuses to release his medical records, sit with 60 Minutes, or debate her again—instead retreating solely to rambling rallies where he’s increasingly making no sense[.] Is he okay?” 

NOTE: OF COURSE HE'S NOT - HE HAS INCREASING DEMENTIA!!!

In Erie, Pennsylvania, today, Harris outlined how her proposals for an “opportunity.......... economy”........ ..will help Black men, calling for business loans for entrepreneurs, more apprenticeships, rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, and study of diseases that disproportionately affect Black men. 

She also continues her outreach to Republicans. Today, former Trump friend and talk show host Geraldo Rivera endorsed her. So did former Wisconsin Republican state senate majority leader Dale Schultz. “I tell people, ‘Look, I didn’t leave the party. The party left me,’” he said. “This is a critically important race, and…Donald Trump should never be allowed in the Oval Office again.”

Today Harris’s campaign announced she will be sitting down with Fox News Channel reporter Bret Baier for an interview on Wednesday from the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Fox News Channel is scheduled to tape a town hall with Trump in front of an audience of women on Tuesday. It is supposed to air on Wednesday morning, while the Harris interview will air Wednesday night.  

At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, tonight, Harris reiterated Trump’s refusal to talk to any but the right-wing media and recalled his promise to terminate the Constitution. And then she used Trump’s own words against him, playing a video montage of Trump’s calls for violence, his threats against “the enemy within,” and his call for using the military against his political opponents. 

“You heard his words, coming from him,” she told the audience. “[H]e considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country…. He’s saying that he would use the military to go after them…. And we know who he would target because he has attacked them before. Journalists whose stories he doesn’t like. Election officials who refuse to cheat by…finding extra votes for him. Judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous…. Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power, that’s what he’s looking for.”

In Oaks, Pennsylvania, tonight, Trump was supposed to take questions from preselected attendees at a town hall with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. He did, at first, although his answers were all over the place and he urged people to vote on January 5. But then, in the hot and crowded space, two people needed medical attention. Slurring, Trump then said: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” And then he stood on stage and swayed for 39 minutes of songs from his personal playlist before seeming to recall that he was supposed to be talking about the election, which he suddenly told the confused crowd was “the most important election in the history of our country” before turning back to the music.

Rob Crilly of the U.K.’s The Daily Mail wrote: “I was at Trump's golden escalator launch, flew out of Washington with him in 2020 and have probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” The headline over Marianne LeVine’s Washington Post story about the event read: “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town-hall episode.

“The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and called into question his mental acuity.”

[l-richardson]

Wake up, America! President Trump is dismantling the Deep State before our very eyes! Here's the latest on how he's taking back our government:

Schedule F Reforms: Trump's bold move to reclassify federal workers under 'Schedule Career/Policy' is reshaping bureaucracy! Over 50,000 positions will see a change. Say goodbye to the SES and hello to efficiency! 🇺🇸 https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/donald-trump/

Oversight Overhaul: 17 Inspectors General out! Trump's cleaning house, redefining government oversight. It's about time we took control back from the bureaucratic elite! https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-elon-musk-doge-treasury-5e26cc80fcb766981cea56afd57ae759

Deportation Drive: With millions of illegal immigrants, Trump's law enforcement strategy is not just about securing borders but saving our economy. Each deportation might cost $13,000, but the price of inaction is far greater!https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-federal-government-what-matters/index.html

Zelensky's Admission: Ukraine got less than half of the $177 billion we sent? Where's the rest? This is your tax dollars at work, folks, or should I say, "not at work"? https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-plan-ease-firing-federal-workers-challenged-by-union-2025-01-29/

Corruption in Ukraine: They rank 116th in corruption perception. Our aid is being used to promote agendas, not support freedom. It's time for accountability! https://chicago.suntimes.com/editorials/2025/01/29/president-trump-buyout-offer-federal-workers-schedule-f-civil-service

Ian Carroll's Truth Bombs: Exposing TikTok's censorship? Carroll's your man. He's showing us how our voices are being silenced by big tech. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/29/elon-musk-opm-federal-workers-buyout-trump/

Cancel Woke Corporations: Join Ian Carroll's fight against corporate wokeness. "Cancel This Clothing Company" is more than a campaign; it's a movement! https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/01/29/the-biggest-job-cut-in-us-history-hit-60000-workers-trump-could-push-out-far-more/

Globalism's End: We're pushing back against the globalist agenda that's been stripping our sovereignty. Time to take back control from multinational corporations! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-executive-order-schedule-f-unions/

Financial Elite's Power: The IMF, World Bank, WTO - tools of global control, not support. They've been widening the wealth gap, and we're not standing for it anymore! https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/29/trump-federal-government-laws-schedule-f/

Article Coming Soon:

Is President Trump Finally Exposing the Deep State Rats Before They Destroy America?

Visit Infowars.com/show for the full scoop!

Legal Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of all associated with the Infowars Network. All information presented here is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and form their own opinions. This content is not intended to incite violence or unlawful action. Statements regarding public figures or political entities are based on our analysis and should be taken as commentary, not as definitive facts. Always consult official sources for verified information.

Warnings:

Caution: This post deals with controversial political topics. Viewer discretion is advised.

This content includes elements of satire and sarcasm; statements should not be taken out of context.

Join the fight for truth, justice, and the American way! Tune in, stay vigilant, and let's make sure the truth prevails. God bless America!

[bllsbailey]

Jill Biden Announces Retirement, Makes Comments About Joe and Kamala That Are Something Else

Joe Biden will finally be going off into the sunset on Jan. 20 after more than 50 years occupying public office. 

He managed to completely finish off his reputation over the past few years and is leaving having fully earned the title of the worst person to occupy the Oval Office in the last 50 years. 

Jill Biden will be out the door with him and a lot of this failure is on her head for having him stay in long after he should have retired. She even ridiculously wanted him to run again. How power-hungry can you be? He's now leaving with everyone knowing how cognitively impaired he is and how much he's hurt the country. And he was shoved to the side in a genuinely anti-democratic move that was truly embarrassing for him. 

READ MORE: Biden's Delusional Remarks About Scandal and Kamala at DNC Holiday Party

As our sister site, PJ Media, reported, now that she's out the political door with her husband, she's also packing it in when it comes to her teaching job at Northern Virginia Community College. She made that announcement during a virtual event with teachers, praising them for using their "teacher voice to organize and get out the vote."  

“Being your first lady has been the honor of my life. But being your colleague has been the work of my life,” she said during a virtual event with teachers. “I will always love this profession, which is why I continued to teach full time while serving as your first lady.”

Jill said that on Thursday, she taught her last class at the school. She didn't say if she would be teaching anywhere else. 

But we're now counting down to when we'll never have to listen to her again, and it's a great thing. Also, after Jan. 20, Randi Weingarten isn't going to control the White House, and that's an added bonus. 

Jill Biden is going out as she's reigned: spreading full-on horse hockey in her incredibly hard-to-take voice at the DNC holiday party. She claimed their party "chooses leaders who have integrity like Joe and Kamala." 

"People who lead with compassion and decency," she said. "People who fight so everyone in our country gets a fair shot." 

First, their reign made everything worse for everybody, with everyone having to pay more because of their policy choices. People didn't get a fair shot; they got crushed by Bidenflation and the border invasion. Then they were treated to stories of Biden giving our money to Ukraine as American citizens were struggling to keep their heads above water. 

Then, too, some think that she's not really a fan of Kamala after Joe Biden was pushed to the side in the election and Kamala was swapped in. 

READ MORE: Jill Biden's Remarks About 'Joy' Make People Wonder Whether She's Trolling Kamala

Moreover, there are few people who have less integrity than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who are constantly lying. I would agree the Democrats choose leaders who have integrity like Joe and Kamala — which is to say they choose leaders who have no integrity. 

Obviously, the American people don't agree with Jill's assessment, as they completely rejected Kamala Harris and Joe Biden with their votes in this election. 

[misfitwashere]

October 14, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 14, 2024

As the two presidential campaigns position themselves for the final sprint to the election on November 5, the difference between them is dramatic. 

Trump is hunkering down behind what has always appeared to be a plan not to attract voters but instead to create chaos on Election Day. Creating confusion around the election could enable his loyalists to put in place the plan the Trump team concocted in 2020 to throw the election into the House of Representatives or get it before the Supreme Court, stacked as it is with Trump loyalists. 

A central piece of that plan appears to be to rile up his supporters to violence, and a few of them have been delivering. News broke yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had advised federal emergency workers to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, because of concerns about their safety after Trump and MAGA Republicans spread the false rumor that federal agents are forcing people off their land to start lithium mining projects. The alert came after the U.S. Forest Service sent an email to federal responders saying that National Guard troops had encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” FEMA officials will no longer go door-to-door with disaster assistance, but instead will stay in fixed locations. 

A man has been arrested and charged with threatening FEMA workers with an assault rifle. He was released on a $10,000 bond.

To the extent Trump or his running mate Ohio senator J.D. Vance talks about them, their policies are promises to repair what they insist is the damage caused by President Joe Biden (although the stock market hit record highs again today), or threats that reinforce an authoritarian Christian nationalist worldview. Today, Bill Barrow of the Associated Press explored the extensive overlap of Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups and the plans that Trump and Vance have set out. 

Both promise to cut taxes for the wealthy, but Project 2025 has more detail about how. Both plan to cut off immigration and to fire federal workers, replacing them with loyalists. Both say the president can decide not to use the money Congress has appropriated (in 2019, Trump refused to disburse the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine until Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to smear Trump’s chief Democratic rival for the presidency, Joe Biden). Both call for slashing government regulations and getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as well as protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and programs addressing climate change. 

But perhaps most revealing of both Trump’s ideology and his plan for the election was his statement to Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he would like to use the military against what he called “the enemy from within…radical left lunatics" to guard the election. While this is a threat to use the power of the government against his political opponents if he is elected—he mentioned California representative and Senate candidate Adam Schiff by name—it also seems likely his loyalists will hear this as a call for violence at election sites. 

Trump’s statement has not gone unnoticed. 

Tonight, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper posted a dictionary definition of the word “fascism”: “A populist political philosophy, movement…that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.” 

On the show, Tapper pressed Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin to comment on Trump’s statement that as commander-in-chief, he would use the military against political opposition. When Youngkin denied that Trump had said any such thing, Tapper replied: “I’m literally reading his quotes to you.” Youngkin’s willingness to deny what was right in front of him did not exactly quell talk of fascism, since in his dystopian novel 1984 about authoritarianism, George Orwell famously wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

If Trump is hunkering down, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz are still pushing ahead, pressing Trump on both his personal weakness and his now open embrace of fascism. Harris’s advisor Ian Sams went on the Fox News Channel today to note that it’s been a month since Trump “did a mainstream media interview, and we got to wonder why. We called this weekend for him to release his medical records…. Donald Trump’s team, I heard him on your air last hour insisting that everything is okay and that…there’s nothing to see here. And your anchor rightly asked, ‘Well, if that’s true, why not just put them out?’” 

At 1:12 this morning, Trump posted on his social media site: “I believe it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on Cognitive Stamina and Agility. Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her.” Sams hit that as well, noting that in the middle of the night, Trump felt obliged to write about Harris and a cognitive test “[a]s he refuses to release his medical records, sit with 60 Minutes, or debate her again—instead retreating solely to rambling rallies where he’s increasingly making no sense[.] Is he okay?” 

In Erie, Pennsylvania, today, Harris outlined how her proposals for an “opportunity economy” will help Black men, calling for business loans for entrepreneurs, more apprenticeships, rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, and study of diseases that disproportionately affect Black men. 

She also continues her outreach to Republicans. Today, former Trump friend and talk show host Geraldo Rivera endorsed her. So did former Wisconsin Republican state senate majority leader Dale Schultz. “I tell people, ‘Look, I didn’t leave the party. The party left me,’” he said. “This is a critically important race, and…Donald Trump should never be allowed in the Oval Office again.”

Today Harris’s campaign announced she will be sitting down with Fox News Channel reporter Bret Baier for an interview on Wednesday from the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Fox News Channel is scheduled to tape a town hall with Trump in front of an audience of women on Tuesday. It is supposed to air on Wednesday morning, while the Harris interview will air Wednesday night.  

At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, tonight, Harris reiterated Trump’s refusal to talk to any but the right-wing media and recalled his promise to terminate the Constitution. And then she used Trump’s own words against him, playing a video montage of Trump’s calls for violence, his threats against “the enemy within,” and his call for using the military against his political opponents. 

“You heard his words, coming from him,” she told the audience. “[H]e considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country…. He’s saying that he would use the military to go after them…. And we know who he would target because he has attacked them before. Journalists whose stories he doesn’t like. Election officials who refuse to cheat by…finding extra votes for him. Judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous…. Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power, that’s what he’s looking for.”

In Oaks, Pennsylvania, tonight, Trump was supposed to take questions from preselected attendees at a town hall with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. He did, at first, although his answers were all over the place and he urged people to vote on January 5. But then, in the hot and crowded space, two people needed medical attention. Slurring, Trump then said: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” And then he stood on stage and swayed for 39 minutes of songs from his personal playlist before seeming to recall that he was supposed to be talking about the election, which he suddenly told the confused crowd was “the most important election in the history of our country” before turning back to the music.

Rob Crilly of the U.K.’s The Daily Mail wrote: “I was at Trump's golden escalator launch, flew out of Washington with him in 2020 and have probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” The headline over Marianne LeVine’s Washington Post story about the event read: “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town-hall episode.

“The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and called into question his mental acuity.”

—

[head-post]

Finnish mercenary calls Ukrainian armed forces a “band of robbers”

Finnish mercenary Ralf Siren, who joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces, has accused Ukrainian commanders of ill-conceived actions and amateurism. The Finn particularly criticised the preparation of military bases and personnel deployment sites for air strikes by Russian troops in an interview with Finnish news agency Yle.

Ralph Siren has been in Ukraine for just over five months and during this time, he said, he has felt disappointment more than once. For example, he was brought to a military base, which consisted of tents in an open field, and they stood quite heaped. Siren said in an interview:

What the hell is this? I ask the commanders if they are serious. They say we are safe here, that we have good air defences. In reality, however, air defence is never 100 per cent effective. Scattered positions are always the most important thing.

The mercenary called Ukrainian commanders idiots, at the same time, he responded to the offer to go to the front with a refusal and preferred to stay at the same base.  Read more HERE

[forlix]

I promise I don't stalk, it's just that I open Tumblr and you were on some of the first posts (I don't follow that many people tho). either way HIHI! I wish I could send you the picture I have of minlix of Minho hugging Lix bc thats ME PROTECTING YOU FROM ALL EVIL IN THIS WORLD! about the rambling and essay answers, we are a match, bc I do love them (sending and receiving).

01. I'm not cool, I promise! I'm just a person with a lot of time to spend on my hand and with a curious mind! haha about the NGOs it would be incredible for your curriculum if you manage to do an internship at the UN, they have massive openings from time to time and it varies from a month to six months, and they usually take undergrads or recently graduated students, it will look INCREDIBLE in your curriculum and they have a MAJOR line of choice, ik this one girl that was an undergrad with me and she manage to work at ACNUR in a refugee camp, then she got called as an intern for six months in Washington working on the Assembly, it was surreal! the best way to get into them is go to their site and dig deep so you find ways to work with them, some pay an amount or give you a place to stay, but what they put there is what you get. you'll work a lot, but the experience will be insane.

02. SAME FOR ME! I always loved how the conflicts happened and the resolution of them, but mostly how they happened and developed (which is one of the reasons why my view on some conflicts are so different than most people around me, I lost count how many times I got into arguments with people over the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine situation). my ultimate favorite classes were more towards the end of the curriculum, they were the ones that changed me for good, like the puzzle of it all it fits after those? it was like I was seeing everything from a magnifying glass or something. don't get me started with my beef with the US and how they handle everything since the second war 😓

03. i had three options of thesis, which looking now is insane, was China was one of them! it was China (but I don't remember how I was gonna portrait it), Korean War (before ik about kpop) and the one I did which was about the rise and fall of Yugoslavia from the premise of the multicultural state. my first counselor wanted me to do focusing on my country, but I wanted the conflict not the portrait of a multicultural state, then I found a new counselor and she helped me so much! with that my thesis is not in English (the full one), but I sure can send you the abstract of it! (let's see if you know who I am and send me a message asking for the abstract 👀 jkjk) and don't apologize for allowing your IR nerd side to come out, that means you are enjoying the course and its helping you get better as a person and view the world in a way to help it get better (at least thats how i justify mine and some of my friends moments when this happen haha).

04. last time I talked and helped someone with something regarding IR was a friend from Congo, he was having trouble with so much, but it all worked out fine and I was so glad with that. I just hope you get to do all the things you want with this course and see that everything is gray in the world, but that should not be used as justification for some things like idk cof cof GENOCIDE cof cof, sorry had something on my throat. either way, be prepare to have people going on saying shit to you when u point out things that make sense (bc you fucking studied, you didn't dig it out of your fucking ass), just bc they saw something on tv and don't want to leave their pretty perfect pink bubbly world (I'm sorry I'm being mean, had a recent disagreement and it's still lingering).

05. I also saw the anon asking about a sequel to subtext and IM SO HAPPY! that was the second story of yours that I read and god it's so perfect! i love it! the first one was the Paris one, reader and Lix scrolling through paris (the prequel to the last one u wrote). idk I just love your stories they are so simple and cute and I love it so much! you are seriously my favorite Lix writer by a mile!

06. if you remember me from that I will be happy ngl haha although my Tumblr does not have any skz stories (just recs that I should update btw and including yours THAT I FINALLY FOUND IT AGAIN), I'll come off anon at some point I promise! and when I do I'll send like five minlix pics to represent me protecting you (THE SUNSHINE) from the evil of this world. I'm not scared of throwing fists, I hate fighting but once I'm in it, it takes a lot to get me out.

I'm so happy that you are happy! I love to see people that are so incredible and kinda receive the same amount or more from the universe in return! I'll try to keep my asks short next time, promise I'll try! have a good day/night, and keep being your incredible self and enchanting everyone that's crosses your path 💞

-🐼

hi angel, i'm so sorry about the late response TT i've had a very tiring couple of weeks but i'm all better now, thank you so much for your patience 🤍 essay under the cut!!

noted about the internship with the un! sounds like an amazing opportunity and i would love to give it a try someday. i'm planning to attend grad school because joining the work force in any capacity is a terrifying premise in my current state, but i'm hoping to dedicate my time in grad school to east asian studies and i'll see where the wind takes me next. thank you for the information! and you ARE the coolest, don't u dare say otherwise >:(

and me as well!! i think it's fascinating how the wars come to be and all the sociocultural and historical factors that lead to their culmination; i really enjoy studying the why and how as opposed to just the what, if that makes sense. also i would recommend against referring to the genocide in gaza as the "israel-palestine conflict" because 1) it isn't a conflict but a genocide and 2) the placement of "israel" before "palestine" is an intentional tactic the media has been employing to enforce the narrative of israeli colonialism. i was made aware of this in a twitter article and i hope it's okay that i gave u the same heads-up!

and your thesis sounds AMAZING omg, yes i would love the abstract if you can get a hold of it!! and yessss i think ur spot on, i feel like i've finally found the field i was meant to study and it's been a wonderful, fulfilling feeling :') i'm hoping to write my dissertation about japan and china.

thank u for the advice love. i agree that studying ir inevitably comes with studying multiple perspectives and recognizing just how immoral and unforgiving the international system is, but that doesn't mean that i'll ever compromise my morals or fail to recognize wrong from right, and genocide is objectively the former. no need to apologize, i don't think you're being mean; i just recently had a big fallout with somebody for similar reasons and the hurt and annoyance has yet to dissipate completely. i'm sorry u went through that 😞

also I'M SO GLAD UR EXCITED FOR IT HEHE. i've already done some brainstorming/drafting and i'm feeling excited for it too. ppl loved that fic, far more than i expected, so i hope u will love the full length story just as much and more 🤍 and thank you for enjoying how i write lix, that makes me happier than i can say, he's my entire heart

no pressure at all to come off anon!! pls pls do whatever is most comfortable for you; i want my blog to feel like a safe space to those who inhabit it with me :) and you are so SO SWEET. every time u send me an ask i find myself wondering all over again if ur real bc you always find things to say to me that go straight to my heart. i appreciate u and ur kindness more than words can say, my love, my panda anon! i hope you're taking care as well!

[spacecace]

suddenly ao3 is unblocked in russia?? im so confused. not mad though.

i did learn while googling this though that the reason it was blocked was because a ukrainian girl very specifically wanted to get it blocked for russians.

which. i mean i understand animosity etc towards russia but ao3 of all sites? like you really think the people in charge who actually make the decisions regarding the war even care?

well people have been hating on russians for being russian for a while now, and its just become more pronounced since the start of this whole thing. like were not happy about this either you know?

people hating on one of my countries for something a majority of us didnt want just makes me sad. obviously not on the same level as your country being under attack, im not trying to say the first is worse than the other. but im also thinking about how much more understanding people are about the difference between a government and a people when it comes to other countries.

also just sad bc like. i have (some distant some not) relatives all over the former ussr like most people do, it all depends on where you were when it was dissolved. and now for example my mothers cousin whos lived in latvia her whole life might be separated from her child, mother, and granchildren because shes being denied residency based on her citizenship. and i know plenty of similar stories and so many people have family in ukraine and russia specifically because historically there wasnt exactly a border there for a long time. and culturally were pretty close. like borscht for example was i think recently proclaimed a national ukrainian dish? which yeah specifically ukrainian borscht is a thing. but also borscht is russian as well due to our shared cultural beginning if i can say that.

i cant even leave the country either. my dad kidnapped my underage brother with my sisters help a few years ago then fucked off to the states and left me and my mom stuck here. not only financially we cant leave but he had my mom blocked from leaving the country due to alimony which hes not even here to receive. not to mention she was a stay at home mom and he made millions in rubles. and by his own confession pursued alimony exclusively as a way to pressure her into signing off on letting him do whatever he wanted with my brother. and we also had my grandmother to think of and couldnt leave her regardless, but shes no longer with us. she rapidly declined after hearing they left to the states, hadnt seen my brother since he was 8 and now never will...

how did this start with ao3 and devolve into venting, idk.

edit: also i havent spoken about the situation in ukraine on this post bc i specifically wanted to talk about how it is from here - just about the ao3 thing tbh. but thats because i dont know how it is to be in ukraine, and i do reblog all the ukraine posts that i see, especially donation things. but also i literally cannot donate because russians have no way to pay for things or move money outside of russia. also i just straight up have no money, and the continuous stress of the family situation and my grandmothers death and the no money and no food and trying to finish university etc etc have caused me to develop psoriatic arthritis and im just always hurting (its genetic and can happen any time in life, usually stress causes it to develop or flare up, i thankfully only have the arthritis part and not the psoriatic part, for now).

[annbobko]

Greetings to all my friends and foes and froes! TW

Yesterday the video was released where ruzzians are beheading Ukrainian soldier alive. Every Ukrainian watching it was traumatised beyond understanding. Many imagined their beloved who are at war or in occupation instead of this soldier. I just can't stop imagining what it feels like when they are cutting your head off alive. How painful it is? When are you dead?

One thing no one Ukrainian felt - surprise. We don't have any illusions about them. Not after dozens of shellings of houses and hospitals. Not after Bucha and Mariupol. And I just feel extremely helpless to prove this point to citizens of western world. I'm happy that no one of you had to deal with such horrific things. But why can't no one see the reason why this is happening? Why no one is calling totalitarian regimes, such as ruzzia and China, what they are - evil? Because having to deal with it every day makes it perfectly clear that this monsters will never stop, it will never be enough for them, no crime will ever be too much for them.

So, living in the middle of the war makes very strange and terrible things normal for you. When I'm scrolling through my social media, obituaries and stand up posters go one after another. And at every concert there is an auction of used war ammunition in order to provide more help for our defenders. There is absolutely no Ukrainian who didn't lose something or someone at this war. I'm terribly sorry for all widows and orphants of our defenders. While ruzzia is sending worst of its citizens to steal some washing machines and rape civilians, from our side the best people are dying. Every day volunteers who had their perfect lives in free Ukraine are dying for Ukraine to stay free so the next generations can live even better. We, civilians, are collecting millions of dollars to help them. I didn't saw any researches but for me it feels like now we're spending on donates more than on food and for sure businesses that doesn't donate won't have their clients - war is hella expensive you know and goverments and non-governmential organisation are providing different types of essentials from tanks to hygiene kits. But the real price of the victory is unbearable - thousands of lives of people with such dignity that they choose to fight and die rather then be silent slaves like ruzzians.

I once went to my liceum site to recall my maths teacher's name and on the home page there are some obituaries for its graduates who went to army and died at war. I knew some of them. It's important to emphasize that none of them was mobilised, they were all students of best universities who just couldn't stand aside. And one day I saw that my geography teacher from that liceum also died being one of the best warriors of his brigade. Just casually saw his face while scrolling the news. He was very young and pretty. And brilliant teacher. I never liked geography but he made it interesting even for me.

I'm finishing my bachelors degree now and teachers don't require attending every lection, but just to show up regularly so they know you are still alive.

But the life goes on. Air raid signals and grief just integrated into everyday routine. Sometimes I feel like it was always like this. It becomes hard to recall peaceful life. Almost impossible to believe that visits to Donetsk from my childhood were real. But we're here, we're alive. And we're fighting harder than ever - because we understand the price of our victory

[starseedpatriot]

I've spoken about the 4-6% many times.

The 4-6% that are gone forever. The progressive left.

Although 5% of the US population is a relatively small number, it still equals 20 to 30 million people.

Leaving 300 million of us who are roughly on the same page whether we know it or not.

But the real question is WHY is the majority of the population oblivious to the fact that the progressive left is the extreme minority?

The answer should be obvious.

BIG TECH AND THE MSM.

These entities purposely amplify the voices of the insane.

It doesn't matter that they are outnumbered 20 to 1.

The algorithms and the network heads make damn sure that all Americans see day after day is how degenerated our society has become and how much "support" there is for CRT, LGBTQ, Black lives matter, Green energy, Ukraine, etc.

Smoke and mirrors.

Divide and conquer.

The Biden admin is a perfect example of this.

The man has had a 30% approval rating since last year, battles severe dementia, the Military ignores him and he doesn't have access to the White House.

Yet the MSM and Big Tech have been able to convince the majority of this country that Joe is in control and still has plenty of support from his "base".

A MASSIVE part of this entire scheme to fool Americans has been the progressive echo chamber known as Twitter.

Twitter has quite literally been a site mainly comprised of bots, algorithms and celebrities that are used to plant mental seeds and then reinforce those ideas with boatloads of fake support.

The average person sees that a thought from someone they admire has exploded with likes and will therefore be likely to adapt that line of thinking regardless of their true beliefs on the subject.

For many people it feels good to be part of the "majority".

For others it's important to support anything that goes against Conservative values or Donald Trump.

The election steal being nonsense, the J6 insurrection, Russiagate, Hunter's laptop being Russian disinformation...

All of these false narratives were spread like wildfire on Twitter. Any dissenting opinion was banned.

For the past year, Twitter has essentially become a place for progressives to receive their daily marching orders on what to think and who to hate.

It's a gigantic brainwashing mechanism that propagates the liberal agenda and produces a mirage of equalness between the two political parties that simply doesn't exist.

The soul of America has not changed.

The United States has ALWAYS been overwhelmingly Conservative.

Cali is RED.

Democrats don't "win" elections.

However, the weapons these vile creatures use to stay in power are dropping left and right...

Left wing media outlets are dead.

Election rigging is exposed.

VOTER ID laws are being established.

People no longer follow the stars.

The liberal agenda is exposed.

We The People are rediscovering our true power.

Twitter truly was their last hope.

And now it's gone...

The TRUTH is truly a force of nature.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 5, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 6, 2024

It’s been an exceedingly weird 24 hours. 

Last night the Senate released the text of the national security supplemental bill on which a bipartisan team of negotiators has been working for four months. Negotiators were working on adding a border component to an urgent measure to fund aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza, since extremist House Republicans said they would not pass such a measure until Congress also addressed what they insisted was a crisis at the U.S. border. 

The measure appropriated $60.1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, $14.1 billion in security aid for Israel, and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for Palestinians, Ukrainians, and other civilians in crises. It also invested about $20 billion in securing the southern border of the U.S., money to be used in hiring new officials, expanding detention facilities, and increasing the screening abilities of border agents to detect illicit fentanyl and other drugs. 

Other provisions would trigger border closures if the volume of migrants climbs past a certain number and make it more difficult to qualify for asylum. At the same time, the measure offered more pathways to citizenship and more work visas. 

But it appears the MAGA Republicans never really intended for such a measure to pass. They apparently thought that demanding that Congress agree to a border measure, which it has not been able to do now for decades, would kill the national security bill altogether. Certainly, once news began to spread that the negotiators were close to a deal, both former president Trump and House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who said he was conferring with Trump, came out strongly against the measure even before anyone knew what was in it.

Trump and MAGA Republicans have been drumming up hysteria about the border as an issue before the 2024 election in part because they have very little else to run on. Voters are angry at the Republicans’ restrictions on abortion—especially in Texas, which has had a number of high-profile cases—and the economy is too strong for Republicans to get much traction by attacking it, especially as the numbers under Biden are dramatically stronger than those under Trump. 

Keeping alive the immigration issue could cut into those numbers, especially in Texas.

But as David Kurtz points out in Talking Points Memo today, it is a terrible mistake to forget that the measure Trump and the MAGA Republicans are blocking is primarily a bill to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia’s invasion, because the administration believes that Ukraine’s stand against Russia is vital for our own national security. Without U.S. weapons and money, Ukraine is running out of ammunition and Russian forces are beginning to take back the territory Ukrainian forces had pushed them out of. 

Funding Ukraine is popular in the U.S., even among a majority of non-MAGA Republicans. Americans recognize that Ukraine’s forces are not simply defending their sovereign territory, they are defending the rules-based international order that protects the United States. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is trying to destroy that order, replacing it with the idea that bigger countries can conquer smaller countries at will. 

Putin’s war on Ukraine has drained Russia’s money and men—just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Russian civilian airplanes are malfunctioning as sanctions bite—and Putin would clearly like the U.S. to abandon Ukraine and clear the way for him to take control of the country. 

Trump and the MAGA Republicans have always had an unusually close relationship with Putin. Over the weekend, former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson, who routinely echoed Russian talking points on his show, was spotted in Moscow. Reports say he has been there since last Thursday, staying in the city’s top hotels and visiting its main cultural sites.

Carlson was fired from Fox in the wake of the election lies in which he participated, and which cost the company $787 million. He said on his now-defunct show that in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, he was “rooting for Moscow.” The Russian Union of Journalists has said they would gladly accept Carlson as a member. 

President Joe Biden and his administration, along with congressional Democrats, are so adamant that the U.S. must aid Ukraine that they were willing to cut a deal with the Republicans in order to get that funding through. That deal did not include a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, people brought to the U.S. without documentation as children who have never known another home but this one, a demand Democrats in the past have stood by. Biden today expressed his frustration that the Republicans excluded the Dreamers from the bill, but he still urged Congress to pass it.

Indeed, as soon as the bill was available, Biden urged Congress to pass it immediately and promised to sign it into law as soon as Congress sent it to him. Over the course of today, those interested in a border measure joined with those interested in aiding Ukraine to call for the bill’s passage. The spectrum of those urging Congress to pass the bill was wide. The right-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Border Patrol union both called for the bill’s immediate passage.

But MAGA Republicans stood against the bill from the start. By midday, the top Republicans in the House—Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY)—had released a statement saying: “Any consideration of this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time. It is DEAD on arrival in the House. We encourage the U.S. Senate to reject it.” Although it seemed clear that the measure would pass the House if it came to the floor, Johnson said he would not introduce it.

A storm raged throughout the day as the Republican senators who had negotiated the bill joined with Republican senators who want Ukraine aid and with Democrats to demand the passage of the bill. Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul noted that Johnson was “blocking the overwhelming majority of the House. Last September, when a related piece of legislation was on the floor, the House voted 311 to 117 in favor of continuing to provide security assistance to Ukraine.” In the Senate, CNN’s Manu Raju reported, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urged the bill’s passage, noting: “This is a humanitarian and security crisis of historic proportions, and Senate Republicans have insisted—not just for months but for years—that this urgent crisis demanded action.”

But by the end of the day, enough Republicans had peeled away from the measure that senior senate reporter for Punchbowl News Andrew Desiderio reported that McConnell had ceased to push the measure, saying that “the political mood in the country has changed.” 

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) wrote. “They literally demanded specific policy, got it, and then killed it.”

Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum reflected on the teetering national security measure and wrote: “People will die, today, because of the cynical game played by the American Republican party. Their irresponsibility is breathtaking.”

Foreign affairs specialist Tom Nichols of The Atlantic wrote: “Letting Ukraine fall because of [Republicans’] cultish loyalty to Trump will be a betrayal that will stain America forever—and probably end up pulling us into a fight for Europe later. This is one of the rare moments when the path to disaster is clearly marked and avoidable.”

Former representative  Liz Cheney (R-WY) summed up the day’s crisis over the national security measure: “On Trump’s orders, Republicans  in Congress are rejecting the border security deal. They’re also abandoning America’s allies in Ukraine. Trump and the [Republicans] are losing the war on purpose in an inexcusable betrayal that will strengthen America’s enemies for years to come.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

Warning: This story contains graphic images and descriptions that some readers may find disturbing.

Scrolling through photos from the mass burial site in Izium, Oksana Sova immediately recognized her husband's bracelet on a corpse's wrist.

"I immediately knew it was him," Sova, 37, told the Kyiv Independent. 

It was that blue-and-yellow bracelet he always wore as a lucky charm – a gift their children gave him before he headed to the front line back in 2014.

Her husband, Serhiy, went missing in action in Kharkiv Oblast on April 19. On that day, they got to talk for two minutes before he had to go back to the front line. Sova has been trying to call her husband’s number day and night since then, but to no avail. 

All this time, Sova had been clinging to the hope of seeing her husband alive. But with every passing day, it was becoming more difficult to brush off the looming reality.

On Sept. 16, sitting in heavily-shelled Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Sova was glued to her phone, checking the news emerging from the liberated areas of Kharkiv Oblast.

Ten days earlier, Ukraine launched a sudden counteroffensive in the northeastern region, liberating the city of Izium by Sept. 10. Soon, a mass burial site containing 447 bodies was uncovered in the recently liberated city. 

Immediately, a photo of a severely decomposed arm with a blue-and-yellow bracelet on it started circulating online. 

"I was crying, screaming horribly, and couldn't control it," Sova said.

Seeing their mother lose control of herself for the first time, her children, aged 9 and 14, immediately understood what had happened. But still, Sova left some room for doubt until she found another photo of her husband, this time capturing the tattoos still visible on his body. 

"It was as if it wasn't just my husband's life that ended, but my life ended," Sova said, bursting into tears. "I lost all meaning in life."  

New Year's memories

The latest New Year's Eve is the last happy memory that Sova now holds on to. 

Serhiy served in northern Chernihiv Oblast at the time, but his commander permitted him to make a quick trip back home to see his wife and two children. 

Even though Serhiy only had two nights at home, the family made the best out of it. They had a barbecue and made plans for the year ahead.

"We just wanted to spend time at home, together with the whole family, and nothing else," Sova said with a hint of a smile.

Less than two months later, on Feb. 24, Russian forces began an all-out war. The northern Chernihiv Oblast, where Serhiy was stationed, immediately became the front line.

After successfully defeating the Russian army in Chernihiv Oblast, Serhiy's regiment was transferred to northeastern Kharkiv Oblast, where fierce battles were ongoing.

In one of his last phone calls, Serhiy talked about the increasing intensity of Russia's shelling. 

"(My husband) didn't back down," Sova said. "He stayed and fulfilled his heroic duty till the end." 

Soldier by birth

With her husband being a soldier during war, Sova had to get used to the agony of living with uncertainty.

Serhiy, a cynologist, was first drafted in 2014, where he served in the village of Pisky near the Donetsk Airport. His main task was supplying Ukrainian defenders holding the airport with arms.

Since then, he has spent most of his time on the battlefield, only occasionally returning home to be with his family. 

Knowing the risks, Serhiy would sometimes sit down with his wife and try to prepare her for the worst possible outcome.

"He knew where he was going. He knew what he was fighting for," Sova said. 

Every time Serhiy returned home, he felt a strong urge to go back to the front line, worrying that Moscow would escalate and launch an all-out war.

Despite being away, Serhiy was always a good father and husband. Sova said he would always hear her out and was "a shoulder to lean on." 

"It hurts so much how I want to talk to him now, and I can't call him," she said.

Sova is now also struggling financially since it's nearly impossible to find a job in Nikopol, a city located just across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar and shelled daily.

Saying goodbye

To officially confirm her husband's death, Sova traveled to Kharkiv Oblast to identify the body a few days after the exhumation started at the mass burial site.

The body was heavily decomposed, so she was asked to look at one of the tattoos to identify her husband. The body was then handed to the family for burial.

A total of 447 bodies have been exhumed from Izium's mass burial site, the State Emergency Service reported on Sept. 25. All but 22 bodies belonged to civilians. Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Synyehubov said that most bodies contain "signs of violent death," and 30 of them having traces of torture. 

A week after Serhiy's body was discovered, the family held a private funeral in Nikopol. Late on Sept. 24, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Serhiy the title of Hero of Ukraine posthumously.

Despite their hometown now being on the southern front line, shelled daily, Sova said she wouldn't leave their family house full of warm memories of their 15-year-long marriage.

 "(15 years with Serhiy) was the best thing in my life," Sova said. "He was the best person in my life." 

[chrisevansluv]

I'll say it's typical Chris, and it has zero to do with his relationship. He's ALWAYS done this, he's been called out for not speaking up about issues that were important. And when he did, it was long after the general public started to drag him for staying quiet. //

I'm the same anon and I agree. It really jarred for me when he was constantly tweeting about Ukraine but never in years said one supportive word about the countries in Africa and the ME that have been ravaged by war for years. It just gave the impression that only predominantly white people's woes matter and are important and similar issues plaguing black and brown people aren't worth talking about. This applies to many white celebrities, btw, and not just Chris. As a brown person, it was really hurtful to me. So much went down in Iran last year and not one peep out of him. It was an insult to Mark Ruffalo when THR called Chris 'The Political Avenger.' That's clearly Mark.

They called Chris what?

It makes no sense when Mark Ruffalo exists. Guess they don't care so much about celebs speaking up on real issues, but them creating a site about politics that fans use to thirst over them.

[henpeckedho]

Heads up--be careful with news sources over the next few months. Like, always be careful with them but especially now. I am posting this on 2/23/2022, as I'm sure the exact talking points will change rapidly but the general idea will stay the same.

Vice posted straight Russian propaganda talking points 6 days ago and claimed it was completely peaceful in Ukraine, that US intelligence was completely wrong the same day Ukrainians were sharing videos of them being shelled.

WSJ today posted an article calling this a cold war despite Ukraine being actively invaded and already being attacked.

If you see anyone saying the US is agitating for this war to happen, check the source.

If you see anything about how a Republican president would be handling it better, just remember that 45's first impeachment was over giving Russia control over the US 2016 election and 45 refused to send aid to Ukraine while he was in office.

There's going to be comment sections on any war article and video flooded with people making the same point over and over again--when that happens, think about who is providing that talking point.

If you see people claiming all the Ukraine videos of active shelling are from Syria--just...look at the architecture. Syria does not look like Ukraine. You can also (if you're up for it) look up footage and see if it matches.

I'm not saying the US isn't an innocent bystander (also NATO given their list of "this will be an act of war" they sent to Putin a couple weeks ago) but this really isn't our fight right now and we shouldn't be center stage in the discussion. If we are, that's a red flag. Ukraine and Russia should be the center stage.

And this goes both ways. Propaganda is a constant in all countries so a good goal is to try not to have knee jerk reactions to any war news. Take a deep breath and check multiple sites. See if citizen reporters from the area are releasing images and videos to back up the news. Currently misinformation relies on the firehose of updates method to get their point across. Take that tactic away by slowing down your reaction time to reports and allow stories to be verified by multiple sources.