#putin toady

[tomorrowusa]

Quit fixating on Putin's nukes FFS.

Donald Trump and his MAGA minions are trying to imply that aid for Ukraine will lead to nuclear war. This is bullshit which is meant to bolster Putin's illegal war of aggression against a peaceful neighbor.

We hear MAGA Russophiles repeat this whenever new aid or new weapons systems are sent to Ukraine. The last time I checked, Putin hasn't nuked San Diego or Memphis. And we have crossed more of Putin's "red lines" than Trump has red neckties.

Even a delusional imperialist like Vladimir Putin understands that the ultimate outcome of any nuclear war would leave him as a shirtless congealed blob of radioactive fat. ⚛

With nuclear option unlikely, Putin struggles to defend his red lines

“There has been an overflow of nuclear threats,” said a Russian official speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “There is already immunity to such statements, and they don’t frighten anyone.” A Russian academic with close ties to senior Russian diplomats agreed, calling the nuclear option “the least possible” of scenarios, “because it really would lead to dissatisfaction among Russia’s partners in the Global South and also because clearly, from a military point of view, it is not very effective.”

The United States and its NATO allies have no intention of giving nukes to Ukraine.

What we don't hear from scare-mongering MAGA zombies or Putin-friendly tankies is that the war in Ukraine would end immediately if the Russian invaders simply left Ukraine. Anybody who truly wants peace should be telling Russia to get the fuck back to their own country.

This week, Trump and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in an op-ed for the Hill that a decision to grant Ukraine permission to use Western long-range missiles “would put the world at greater risk of nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis” and called for direct negotiations with Moscow instead.

The only thing to "negotiate" with Moscow is a short ceasefire while Russia withdraws all its invading troops. The bottom line is that Russia has no business in Ukraine. The invasion is in violation of numerous international laws, treaties, and memoranda.

As for technology, Russia's means of using ICBMs in nuclear war just ain't what it used to be.

Latest Russian ICBM Test May Have Failed, Satellite Images Suggest

Russia is a third-rate power which happens to have nukes and a lot of empty territory that looks deceptively impressive on a map. Its ability to handle any atomic technology competently is questionable. Even during the glory days of the Soviet Union it gave the world its worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.

Chernobyl is in northern Ukraine which became independent in 1991. Ukrainians had done a good job of cleaning up much of the radioactive mess left by Moscow.

But Russia then temporarily occupied the area around Chernobyl in the early part of the invasion. Russian occupiers there did incredibly stupid things like dig military trenches in radioactive soil and loot radioactive materials to take home as souvenirs.

Russia has few serious competitors for the Darwin Awards this year. 🎖  ⚛️

What we should worry more about is another nuclear accident inside Russia caused by recklessness or incompetence. The sooner Ukraine is victorious, the more likely Russia will be able to tend to its own problems at home.

^^^ красные линии = red lines

[liberalsarecool]

Joe Biden was not a traitor. Joe Biden was not a Putin toady. Joe Biden was an ally to all our EU and NATO partners. Joe Biden passed a remarkable infrastructure bill that helped millions of Americans and invested in hundreds of communities.

Joe Biden capped insulin at $35.

Trump did the opposite and lined his own pockets while talking like a disordered abuser.

[wilwheaton]

Elon Musk is not one of those limp Republican toadies who loses everything – power, respect, basic recognition – when Donald Trump cuts off their oxygen supply. If Trump tries to “fire” Elon Musk, Elon Musk does not go away. Musk continues to have dialogs with Putin, Zelensky, Mike Johnson, John Thune, the entire military industrial complex, and every financial player on the international stage. Elon Musk is just the type of authoritarian leader that Donald Trump admires… and is completely intimidated by.

The Fuse is Lit on the Inevitable Explosion Between Trump and Musk

[savage-daughter-of-nikitie]

D. Earl Stephens, retired managing editor of the military's daily newspaper, Stars and Stripes, issues a warning, not only to the average citizen of the U.S. but, I believe, to rank and file military personnel at home and around the world.

He's exhorting them to consider if they will follow the orders of a madman hell bent on destroying the U.S. or follow the U.S. Constitution. I suspect tens of thousands of troops will disobey orders rather than invade Canada (less so with Greenland or Panama, I suspect). Those will be the first shots of the civil war.

I'm posting the entire text of his piece here and will link to the article in comments.

@followers @highlight

---

“It would be helpful if we stopped pretending this terrible chapter in American history won’t close without bloodshed …

It would be helpful if Americans, and our feeble Democratic politicians in particular, stopped implying by their comatose actions that Democracy is some damn American right and has no end date.

America very well might be arriving at hers, because, yes, it really is that bad right now.

Rather than bringing Ping-Pong paddles and groovy, little signs to a fascist hate-fest disguised as a State of the Union speech, it would be helpful if our meek, out-of-touch Democratic politicians at least pretended they understood the perilous moment we are standing in right now.

We are in deep, deep trouble, and now would be a wonderful, necessary time to step in front of your favorite mirror and honestly ask yourself what you are willing to do to fight for our country’s survival.

We are but six-plus weeks into the repulsive, wannabe-king’s second term and the damage he and his party are causing are already at catastrophic levels.

Our air, water, earned benefits, peace, public safety, civil rights, and human rights are all under immediate threat. Worse? This is only the first course of many that will be served by the vindictive, orange madman, and his pathetic party of supplicants.

The insults, the attacks, endless provocations, and thrashing of our Constitution will continue daily. All this carefully planned evil will be aimed at exactly one thing: breaking us.

Everything he is doing is designed to pound us into submission, and he’s having a grand damn doing it.

This was entirely his aim when he and his pet mutt, JD Vance, double-teamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the behest of Boss Putin in the Oval Office on Friday. The idea was to publicly humiliate the man who has done more to defend America’s interests across the globe than any Republican in memory.

Because Zelenskyy has tasted gun powder and breathed the odious smell of death on the battlefield, he wasn't about to be pushed around by some morbidly obese, 78-year-old yacht club bully and his toady, who think swinging a sand wedge to free a golf ball from some bunker is dangerous business.

Zelenskyy punched back and wasn't having it. He told the truth, and didn't back down. The future of his country is on the line right now, and he acted like it.

And therein lies the playbook for dealing with this sadistic bastard — if only the cautious, too-clever Democratic Party and their weak leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, bothered paying attention.

While Rome burns, they dither.

They act as if we have all the time in the world, when time is something that is not guaranteed right now. They seem to somehow have no idea how bad things are about to get, or most certainly will be when elections they seem to be pinning their hopes on roll around next year.

Everything changed on November 5th, but by the looks of it, very little has changed in the Democratic Party.

This country will never be the same, and the sooner we come to grips with that, and start acting accordingly the better.

What would you do if everything you had and everyone you loved was threatened? Would you act like Zelenskyy or Schumer?

One of the big mistakes of Joe Biden’s presidency was this notion that everything was going to be OK, and that his idea of America matched the actual circumstances of America.

If I had a dollar for every time he said this, I’d fold up shop and move to Tahiti:

“We are the United States of America – there's nothing we can't do if we do it together. We just have to remember who we are.”

It was a noble statement and magical thinking that would have worked great pre-2016, when we could still believe without being laughed at that our two parties could work together in a crisis to protect America.

When we were attacked by the terrible human being who is now somehow leading us January 6, 2021, that magical thinking needed to go out the nearest window.

Instead, our Justice Department twiddled its thumbs and allowed the America-attacker to build himself back up, so that WE would have to deal with him AGAIN.

I seethe just thinking about this, but it is where we are right now, and the sooner we all understand this the better.

The clock is ticking. The bomb is in place.

Which brings me back around to my original premise: At some point, he will do something so heinous … so anti-America … so dangerous … that the people who truly love our country will be forced into the streets to take a life-or-death stand. Sadly, this is actually the best-case scenario, because the worst case is we just go quietly into the dark, gloomy night and become an authoritarian country, where we have zero rights or say in how we are governed.

Yesterday under the cover of his blankets, the America-attacker shared this with us:

Now read the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES."

He is telling us what he thinks of America and silly things like the Constitution. Kings don’t pay attention to that kind worthless drivel.

And, really, end of the day, it not him who we have most to fear. It’s the stupid, goddam Republicans who are stubbornly in all of our lives. These are the people who have illustrated there is no known pain or sacrifice to our civil liberties or pocketbooks that they won’t absorb just for the satisfaction of watching some poor kid of color going without something they didn’t think she should have.

So the choice is yours: You can continue thinking there is some magical way out of this, or you can begin to take the threat to everything you hold dear seriously, and ACT accordingly.”

— D. Earl Stephens, author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes.

[misfitwashere]

It would be helpful if we stopped pretending this terrible chapter in American history won’t close without bloodshed …

It would be helpful if Americans, and our feeble Democratic politicians in particular, stopped implying by their comatose actions that Democracy is some damn American right and has no end date.

America very well might be arriving at hers, because, yes, it really is that bad right now.

Rather than bringing Ping-Pong paddles and groovy, little signs to a fascist hate-fest disguised as a State of the Union speech, it would be helpful if our meek, out-of-touch Democratic politicians at least pretended they understood the perilous moment we are standing in right now.

We are in deep, deep trouble, and now would be a wonderful, necessary time to step in front of your favorite mirror and honestly ask yourself what you are willing to do to fight for our country’s survival.

We are but six-plus weeks into the repulsive, wannabe-king’s second term and the damage he and his party are causing are already at catastrophic levels.

Our air, water, earned benefits, peace, public safety, civil rights, and human rights are all under immediate threat. Worse? This is only the first course of many that will be served by the vindictive, orange madman, and his pathetic party of supplicants.

The insults, the attacks, endless provocations, and thrashing of our Constitution will continue daily. All this carefully planned evil will be aimed at exactly one thing: breaking us.

Everything he is doing is designed to pound us into submission, and he’s having a grand damn doing it.

This was entirely his aim when he and his pet mutt, JD Vance, double-teamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the behest of Boss Putin in the Oval Office on Friday. The idea was to publicly humiliate the man who has done more to defend America’s interests across the globe than any Republican in memory.

Because Zelenskyy has tasted gun powder and breathed the odious smell of death on the battlefield, he wasn't about to be pushed around by some morbidly obese, 78-year-old yacht club bully and his toady, who think swinging a sand wedge to free a golf ball from some bunker is dangerous business.

Zelenskyy punched back and wasn't having it. He told the truth, and didn't back down. The future of his country is on the line right now, and he acted like it.

And therein lies the playbook for dealing with this sadistic bastard — if only the cautious, too-clever Democratic Party and their weak leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, bothered paying attention.

While Rome burns, they dither.

They act as if we have all the time in the world, when time is something that is not guaranteed right now. They seem to somehow have no idea how bad things are about to get, or most certainly will be when elections they seem to be pinning their hopes on roll around next year.

Everything changed on November 5th, but by the looks of it, very little has changed in the Democratic Party.

This country will never be the same, and the sooner we come to grips with that, and start acting accordingly the better.

What would you do if everything you had and everyone you loved was threatened? Would you act like Zelenskyy or Schumer?

One of the big mistakes of Joe Biden’s presidency was this notion that everything was going to be OK, and that his idea of America matched the actual circumstances of America.

If I had a dollar for every time he said this, I’d fold up shop and move to Tahiti:

“We are the United States of America – there's nothing we can't do if we do it together. We just have to remember who we are.”

It was a noble statement and magical thinking that would have worked great pre-2016, when we could still believe without being laughed at that our two parties could work together in a crisis to protect America.

When we were attacked by the terrible human being who is now somehow leading us January 6, 2021, that magical thinking needed to go out the nearest window.

Instead, our Justice Department twiddled its thumbs and allowed the America-attacker to build himself back up, so that WE would have to deal with him AGAIN.

I seethe just thinking about this, but it is where we are right now, and the sooner we all understand this the better.

The clock is ticking. The bomb is in place.

Which brings me back around to my original premise: At some point, he will do something so heinous … so anti-America … so dangerous … that the people who truly love our country will be forced into the streets to take a life-or-death stand. Sadly, this is actually the best-case scenario, because the worst case is we just go quietly into the dark, gloomy night and become an authoritarian country, where we have zero rights or say in how we are governed.

Yesterday under the cover of his blankets, the America-attacker shared this with us:

Now read the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES."

He is telling us what he thinks of America and silly things like the Constitution. Kings don’t pay attention to that kind worthless drivel.

And, really, end of the day, it not him who we have most to fear. It’s the stupid, goddam Republicans who are stubbornly in all of our lives. These are the people who have illustrated there is no known pain or sacrifice to our civil liberties or pocketbooks that they won’t absorb just for the satisfaction of watching some poor kid of color going without something they didn’t think she should have.

So the choice is yours: You can continue thinking there is some magical way out of this, or you can begin to take the threat to everything you hold dear seriously, and ACT accordingly.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.

[beauty-funny-trippy]

We Americans need to send a loud and clear message in the upcoming election — "We've had enough of your bullshit." And we've had enough of your immoral, corrupt, traitorous, egomaniacal, wannabe dictator, and all you Republican politicians that support him.

We're tired of you Republicans sending "thoughts and prayers" to parents of murdered children, then encouraging more school shootings by blocking commonsense gun legislation. We're tired of you making laws that force women to give birth against their will, and send them to prison if they don't comply. We're tired of your corrupt Supreme Court Justices. We're tired of your attacks on voting rights. We're tired of your treatment toward people of color, military veterans, and the lgbtq community. We're tired of your tax breaks for billionaires. We're tired of your willful negligence about climate change. We're tired of your attacks on affordable healthcare. We're tired of you crying for immigration reform out of one side of your mouth, while out of the other side of your mouth you call out to block it. We're tired of your Big Lie about the election being stolen. We're tired of your blatant hypocrisy, your shameful cowardice, and your obvious lies. We're tired of it all.

Recently, Trump again refused to rule out using political violence as a means of obtaining the presidency. —Let. That. Sink. In.— It should set off alarm bells and red warning flags, but Republicans treat it with a shrug. Apparently, Trump has normalized violence. It's important to note that, questions about using political violence were not even asked of candidates prior to Trump entering politics.

Your unwavering support of a traitor who has encouraged violence, claims to be above the law, and wants to be a dictator like his idol, Vladimir Putin, can only mean one thing — you have all surely gone mad.

The only way America can move forward, away from the threat of a Republican dystopia, is when Donald J. Trump, and all his toadies, are tossed onto the ash heap of history.

For generations, Americans have given their lives to preserve democracy for us. Now it is our turn to preserve democracy for future generations.

We can do it America. WE JUST NEED TO VOTE.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump nominated former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, an apologist for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, to be his director of national intelligence on Wednesday, in yet another example of how horrible his administration will be. The former Democratic-congresswoman-turned-right-wing-hack endorsed Trump in August. Gabbard has been dogged by stories questioning her financial connections to an alleged Russian agent as well as her penchant for parroting Putin’s talking points.

Donald Trump picks former Congresswoman and Putin toady Tulsi Gabbard to be DNI. Gabbard recently became a Republican officially after being a de facto one for several years, and was previously a Democrat, in which she ran for that party’s nomination in 2020.

See Also:

HuffPost: Trump To Nominate Tulsi Gabbard As Director Of National Intelligence

The Guardian: Trump chooses Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence

[worldofwardcraft]

Turns out he did have some cards.

June 9,2025

It's hard to imagine why any national leader would meet with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. For one thing, Trump has tarted it up with so many tacky gold tchotchkes it more resembles a third-rate Las Vegas casino than a setting for a serious diplomatic get-together. But even worse, heads of foreign governments may find themselves enduring a barrage of Trump's unhinged lies and boorish insults.

For example, last month South African president Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House to reset relations between the two countries. Reported the BBC:

Instead, Trump surprised Ramaphosa during a live news conference with widely discredited claims of a "white genocide" in South Africa.

In February, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed up at the Oval Office to talk about security arrangements for his nation in its war with Russia, only to be assailed by Trump and his toady VP for being "disrespectful," ungrateful and for gambling with starting a global war. “You’re not in a good position," Trump scolded. "You don’t have the cards!” Zelenskyy must have smiled inwardly.

On June 1, the Ukrainian domestic intelligence agency, SBU, carried out Operation Pautina (Spiderweb). It involved smuggling over 100 short-range attack drones deep into Russia. These were concealed under the roofs of small wooden sheds which were then loaded onto trucks and driven to the perimeters of four Russian airbases — Belaya, Dyagilevo, Olenya, and Ivanovo — located thousands of miles from Ukraine and extending from the Finnish border to Siberia.

Activated simultaneously, the drones destroyed 41 Tu-95, Tu-22M and TU-160 strategic bombers, which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukrainian cities. Incidentally, by then all the SBU operatives had successfully left Russia. Said Zelenskyy of the damage to Russia's bomber fleet:

Thirty-four per cent of the strategic cruise missile carriers at the airfields were hit. Our people were operating in different Russian regions – in three time zones.

The total cost of the operation? Around $70,000. While the cost to Russia to replace its bombers will exceed $7 billion. Trump, on the other hand, brags constantly about spending a billion dollars in his war against the Houthis in Yemen, while getting Reaper drones shot down, losing two fighter jets to the bottom of the Red Sea, and accomplishing nothing.

Because they didn't trust Trump not to tell Putin, Ukraine kept US intelligence completely in the dark during the year and a half spent planning the Spiderweb operation. Unlike motor mouth Trump, Zelenskyy knows how to keep his cards close to his chest.

[sjerzgirl]

D. Earl Stephens, retired managing editor of the military's daily newspaper, Stars and Stripes, issues a warning, not only to the average citizen of the U.S. but, I believe, to rank and file military personnel at home and around the world.

He's exhorting them to consider if they will follow the orders of a madman hell bent on destroying the U.S. or follow the U.S. Constitution. I suspect tens of thousands of troops will disobey orders rather than invade Canada (less so with Greenland or Panama, I suspect). Those will be the first shots of the civil war.

“It would be helpful if we stopped pretending this terrible chapter in American history won’t close without bloodshed …

It would be helpful if Americans, and our feeble Democratic politicians in particular, stopped implying by their comatose actions that Democracy is some damn American right and has no end date.

America very well might be arriving at hers, because, yes, it really is that bad right now.

Rather than bringing Ping-Pong paddles and groovy, little signs to a fascist hate-fest disguised as a State of the Union speech, it would be helpful if our meek, out-of-touch Democratic politicians at least pretended they understood the perilous moment we are standing in right now.

We are in deep, deep trouble, and now would be a wonderful, necessary time to step in front of your favorite mirror and honestly ask yourself what you are willing to do to fight for our country’s survival.

We are but six-plus weeks into the repulsive, wannabe-king’s second term and the damage he and his party are causing are already at catastrophic levels.

Our air, water, earned benefits, peace, public safety, civil rights, and human rights are all under immediate threat. Worse? This is only the first course of many that will be served by the vindictive, orange madman, and his pathetic party of supplicants.

The insults, the attacks, endless provocations, and thrashing of our Constitution will continue daily. All this carefully planned evil will be aimed at exactly one thing: breaking us.

Everything he is doing is designed to pound us into submission, and he’s having a grand damn doing it.

This was entirely his aim when he and his pet mutt, JD Vance, double-teamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the behest of Boss Putin in the Oval Office on Friday. The idea was to publicly humiliate the man who has done more to defend America’s interests across the globe than any Republican in memory.

Because Zelenskyy has tasted gun powder and breathed the odious smell of death on the battlefield, he wasn't about to be pushed around by some morbidly obese, 78-year-old yacht club bully and his toady, who think swinging a sand wedge to free a golf ball from some bunker is dangerous business.

Zelenskyy punched back and wasn't having it. He told the truth, and didn't back down. The future of his country is on the line right now, and he acted like it.

And therein lies the playbook for dealing with this sadistic bastard — if only the cautious, too-clever Democratic Party and their weak leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, bothered paying attention.

While Rome burns, they dither.

They act as if we have all the time in the world, when time is something that is not guaranteed right now. They seem to somehow have no idea how bad things are about to get, or most certainly will be when elections they seem to be pinning their hopes on roll around next year.

Everything changed on November 5th, but by the looks of it, very little has changed in the Democratic Party.

This country will never be the same, and the sooner we come to grips with that, and start acting accordingly the better.

What would you do if everything you had and everyone you loved was threatened? Would you act like Zelenskyy or Schumer?

One of the big mistakes of Joe Biden’s presidency was this notion that everything was going to be OK, and that his idea of America matched the actual circumstances of America.

If I had a dollar for every time he said this, I’d fold up shop and move to Tahiti:

“We are the United States of America – there's nothing we can't do if we do it together. We just have to remember who we are.”

It was a noble statement and magical thinking that would have worked great pre-2016, when we could still believe without being laughed at that our two parties could work together in a crisis to protect America.

When we were attacked by the terrible human being who is now somehow leading us January 6, 2021, that magical thinking needed to go out the nearest window.

Instead, our Justice Department twiddled its thumbs and allowed the America-attacker to build himself back up, so that WE would have to deal with him AGAIN.

I seethe just thinking about this, but it is where we are right now, and the sooner we all understand this the better.

The clock is ticking. The bomb is in place.

Which brings me back around to my original premise: At some point, he will do something so heinous … so anti-America … so dangerous … that the people who truly love our country will be forced into the streets to take a life-or-death stand. Sadly, this is actually the best-case scenario, because the worst case is we just go quietly into the dark, gloomy night and become an authoritarian country, where we have zero rights or say in how we are governed.

Yesterday under the cover of his blankets, the America-attacker shared this with us:

Now read the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES."

He is telling us what he thinks of America and silly things like the Constitution. Kings don’t pay attention to that kind worthless drivel.

And, really, end of the day, it not him who we have most to fear. It’s the stupid, goddam Republicans who are stubbornly in all of our lives. These are the people who have illustrated there is no known pain or sacrifice to our civil liberties or pocketbooks that they won’t absorb just for the satisfaction of watching some poor kid of color going without something they didn’t think she should have.

So the choice is yours: You can continue thinking there is some magical way out of this, or you can begin to take the threat to everything you hold dear seriously, and ACT accordingly.”

— D. Earl Stephens, author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes.

[eaglesnick]

“Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies”. – Dorothy Allison

A recent YouGov poll found that 23% of the British population would vote for Reform UK and Nigel Farage at the next general election. I would urge them to think again.

Farage is a sycophantic opportunist who, like his “good friend" Donald Trump, is only interested in himself. Let me explain.

During the USA presidential election campaign Trump gave a shout out to Farage who was in the audience.

“The Reform UK leader stood up and punched his fist in the air. Speaking after Mr Trump's win, Mr Farage gushed about his loyalty to the President-elect. “I’ve been loyal to this guy through thick and thin."  (Mirror: 07/11/24)

Poor choice Mr Farage! Your “good friend" has just stitched up 38 million Ukrainians and is possibly setting up the conditions for a wider war in Europe.

Trump is blaming Ukraine for starting the war with Russia and has accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being a dictator, which is a bit like Churchill being accused of starting the war against Nazi Germany. We all know this is an absolute fabrication on Trump’s part and Farage has been complicit in this “fake news” conspiracy.

Just eight months ago Farage was lining up behind Trump and blaming the EU and NATO for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

“Rivals attack Farage for saying West provoked Ukraine war."  (BBCNews: 21/06/24)

What is more, Farage publicly admitted Vladimir Putin was the world leader he most admired because of the way he dominated Russia.

“Nigel Farage says he ‘admired’ Putin for ‘control of running Russia’” (independent: 21/0624)

The way Putin controls Russia is through rigged elections, poisonings and assassination of his opponents, dissenting voices falling from tall buildings, and imprisonment without trial. Clearly much there to be admired!

All the while Farage was toadying up to Trump, these were his public positions. Farage was hopeful that Trump, and Trump’s friends such as Elon Musk, would finance Reform UK.

“Musk ready to bankroll Farage with ‘biggest donation in British political history’. US billionaire endorses Reform UK leader after Mar-a-Lago meeting with party treasurer Nick Candy”  (The Telegraph: 17/12/24)

Alas, Farage and Musk fell out and the hoped for $100 million dollars never materialised. The hard-right Musk called for the release of far-right Tommy Robinson from  prison. This was too much for the egotistical Farage who sees Robinson as a rival to his own leadership of hard-right politics in the UK. This spat led to a divide between Farage and his former US right-wing allies. 

“Elon Musk sensationally turned on Nigel Farage today, saying he should be removed as Reform UK leader because he does not 'have what it takes'. (Mail Online: 06/01/25)

Worse still was Trump’s reaction. Having used Farage to demonstrate his overseas support in Europe, and in the UK ,Trump no longer had a use for the sycophantic Farage.

“Nigel Farage Is 'Much Smaller' To Donald Trump Now After Elon Musk Row.” (Huffpost: 23/01/25)

This fall from grace was epitomised by the unedifying spectacle of Farage flying to America to celebrate Trump being elected President and not being invited to the party.

“Nigel Farage snubbed for Trump’s inauguration despite flying out to the US again The Clacton MP made another trip across the pond, but failed to bag an invite to the ceremony.”  (The London Economic: 23/01/25)

The chastened and humiliated Farage has now done a 180-degree about turn in his support for Trump, and despite formally claiming to be  “loyal to Trump through thick and thin”, Farage has turned against his former “good friend”.  Farage now SUPPORTS Ukraine joining NATO, whereas before he insisted NATO was part of the problem.

What is more, Farage has since admitted that his admiration for Putin was misplaced.

Well, I was wrong. Putin has gone much further than I thought he would.”” (The London Economic:24/02/24)

The trouble with Farage and Reform UK is they are wrong on so many fronts, not just their support for dictators: his choice of Trump as a “good friend"; his “admiration” for Putin; and his obsessive hatred of the EU, blaming them and NATO for the war in Ukraine.

Having been snubbed and sidelined by Trump, and having seen that 89% of the British population is opposed to Putin, Farage has conveniently back-peddled on his former beliefs and convictions.

His supporters will argue this is a good thing and shows Farage and Reform UK are open to change. Others would say that Farage’s “road to Damascus” moment is simply an example of his unscrupulous desire for power, changing Reform UK's policies to suit the perceived direction of the political wind at the time.

I know what I think.3

[tomorrowusa]

Another day, another Russian war crime. This time Putin killed a two-month old baby and injured his mother.

The baby's body was pulled out of the rubble of the three-storey building in the village of Zolochiv, said Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov. Two other women were hurt when Russia fired two S-300 missiles, he said, hitting the hotel and nearby buildings. Attacks on the Kharkiv region have intensified since the end of 2023. Zolochiv is only 20km (12 miles) from the Russian border and too close for Ukraine's air defences to offer sufficient cover. The S-300s that hit the hotel in the early hours of Tuesday were originally produced as surface-to-air missiles for Russia's air defences, but they have been adapted to hit Ukrainian targets on the ground. They are seen as cheaper than more accurate cruise missiles.

So Russia is running low on cruise missiles and is forced to substitute S-300s which were originally meant to his targets in the air.

Putin may be low on cruise missiles but one of his top US cheerleaders is in Moscow to pay homage to him.

Tucker Carlson reminds me of those US pro-Hitler commentators who would use their radio shows in the 1930s to extol the virtues of fascism.

Tucker is supposed to interview Putin but he isn't waiting for the interview to spread lies about the US news media. CNN's Abby Phillip does an effortless debunking of Tucker Carlson's Kremlin bullshit and then speaks with Russia specialist Julia Ioffe.

There's an entire ecosystem of far right mendacity which includes Putin, sex offender Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson, and various Congressional toadies like Marjorie Traitor Greene. They are united in their hatred of democracy and will tell any lie to damage it.

[qqueenofhades]

Apparently Wagner gave up and are going back to base, what hell is going on?

Once again: Hell if I know?

The story currently seems to be that Belarusian dictator and noted Putin toady Alexander Lukashenko "brokered a truce" with Prigozhin, who "agreed that it was a bad idea to spill Russian blood," and having presumably properly put the fear of God into the military establishment, decided to withdraw. Which.... may be true, it may not, but there's no way in hell that this is the end. Putin already used his "Prigozhin is a traitor who needs to be destroyed" card, and he told the Wagnerites/Russian army to get rid of him. So is he just gonna let him go back to the battlefield, at liberty to try this all over again the next time he gets megalomaniacal delusions of grandeur?

Likewise, Prigozhin looks like a fucking idiot who can't carry things through/had the Russian establishment by the throat and then took a sweetheart deal for himself, while the ordinary Wagnerites may not be as keen to just call it off and go home. This is not what happens when things are going well or your government is stable, and there's no way to say how this will play with the Russian oligarchs/remaining Putin inner circle, the Russian military, or anything else. Things have decidedly entered the Find Out stage, we just don't know when the final straw will break the camel's back, and literally anything could happen next. As I said, if Putin doesn't kill Prigozhin, he looks incredibly weak. If he does, he alienates Wagner and loses the only effective part of his war criminal brigade. So there's not really any way that this ends up well for him, regardless of what is next.

[doylewesleywalls]

You Could Vote for an Honest, Mature, Intellectual Adult with Gravitas Who, on Philosophical Grounds, Actually Happens to Be a Conservative, If It Weren’t for the Fact that for Some Reason You Desperately Need a Shitstorm by Doyle Wesley Walls Via Flickr:

accepts & invigorates hate groups if they like him

doesn’t understand freedom of the press 

demands loyalty to himself instead of the U.S. Constitution 

admires authoritarian leaders, wants to be one 

driven by spite 

selfish 

mean-spirited 

makes classless, rude remarks about the physical appearance of the wife of one of his political opponents; goes on to compare her to his own wife 

insensitive 

vulgarian 

obstruction of justice 

takes a red carpet with him on his airplane 

unread 

Said “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians” 

poor vocabulary; poor communicator 

racist 

abusive toward women 

philistine 

poor businessman 

cheater (on wives & business associates) 

delusional 

egotistical 

refuses to return classified documents that belong to the American people; keeps these documents in locations that are not secure; shows them to people who are not authorized to see them in order to make himself look important and innocent of wrongdoing; someone with a knowledge of history should explain the saying "loose lips sink ships" to him 

braggart 

immature 

born on third base, thinks he hit a triple 

dangerous 

tells an anxious nation to drink bleach to fight COVID 

profits by dividing Americans against each other 

needy brags repeatedly about acing a simple test used to detect mental impairment; “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV,” Trump kept saying for us as if he were a Rhodes Scholar 

considered a jackass on an international stage 

placed his name on a joke of a university 

insecure 

has a toady for a doctor and directs the toady to release a health report that makes him sound like the best physical specimen ever to serve as President 

called for violence instead of the peaceful transfer of power 

liar 

manipulator 

attacks a female journalist from the Fox "News" Network (of all places) for asking an appropriate, legitimate question at a presidential debate; Trump suggests she might have asked him that tough question because she was probably menstruating; he routinely insulted journalists publicly for asking tough questions 

crybaby 

makes arrogant claims about himself 

withheld $391 million in military aid to Ukraine over “favor” 

kisses Putin’s ass 

disrespected the scholarly process we call “science” 

disrespected Evangelicals behind their backs 

disrespected American soldiers who died fighting Nazis 

con man milking the poor for their money and votes

stochastic terrorist

[mightyflamethrower]

Joe Biden lied repeatedly when he claimed he knew nothing of his son Hunter’s influence-peddling businesses.

The President further prevaricated that he had no involvement in Hunter’s various shake down schemes.

Yet, the media continued to misinform by serially ignoring these facts.

Had journalists just been honest and independent, then candidate Joe Biden might have lost a presidential debate and even the 2020 election. The public would have learned that Hunter’s business associates and his laptop proved Joe was deeply involved in his son’s illicit businesses.

Later, as the evidence from IRS whistleblowers mounted, the White House stonewalled subpoenaed efforts and sought to craft an outrageous plea deal reduction in Hunter’s legal exposure.

Reporters ignored the Ukrainians who claimed Joe Biden himself talked to them about quid pro quo arrangements.

They again discounted Hunter’s laptop that explicitly demonstrated that Hunter was whining that he had handed over large percentages of his income to his father Joe—variously referred to as the Big Guy and a “ten percent” recipient on many deals.

They played dumb about Joe Biden’s use of pseudonyms and alias email accounts to hide thousands of his communications to Hunter and associates.

They attacked the former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who now claims Biden was likely bribed by Ukrainians.

Yet the media can no longer hide the reality that the President of the United States likely took bribes to influence or alter U.S. policy to suit his payers. Those two crimes—bribery and treason—are specifically delineated in the Constitution as impeachable offenses.

In denial, the media has instead pivoted with hysterical glee over various weaponized prosecutions of Donald Trump.

But now, to use a progressive catchphrase, the proverbial “walls are closing in” on Joe Biden.

So will we at last expect the media finally to confront the truth?

Answer—only if Joe Biden’s cognitive and physical health continues to deteriorate geometrically to the point that he can no longer finish his term or run for reelection—and thus becomes expendable.

Such a cynical view of the media is justified given their record of both incompetence and unapologetic deceit.

From 2015 to 2019, we were suffocated 24/7 with lies like “Russian collusion,” “Putin’s puppet,” “election rigging” and the “Steele dossier.”

When all such “evidence” was proven to be a complete fraud cooked up through Hillary Clinton’s stealthy hiring of and collusion with a discredited ex-British spy, a Russian fabulist at the Brookings Institution and a Clinton toady in Moscow, did the media apologize for their untruth?

Was there any media confessional that perhaps Robert Mueller and his leftwing legal team (the giddy media-dubbed “all-stars,”  “dream team,” and “hunter killers”) proved a colossal waste of time?

Not at all.

Instead, the media went next right on to “the phone call” and “impeachment.”

The country then wasted another year.

The same biased reporters now claimed that the heroic Andrew Vindman had caught Donald Trump fabricating lies about the Bidens—given Joe Biden was a possible 2020 opponent—to force Ukraine to investigate them or lose American foreign aid.

On that accusation Trump was impeached.

Then the truth emerged that unlike Joe Biden, Trump never threatened to cancel aid, but merely to delay it.

Trump was right that the Bidens were knee deep in Ukrainian bribes and influence peddling.

And that the whistleblower had no first-hand knowledge of the Trump call but was spoon fed a script cooked up by the gadfly Vindman and Rep. Adam Schiff.

The result was journalistic glee that we impeached a president for crimes that he did not commit but exempted another president, Joe Biden, who had actually committed them.

Then came the next hoax of the Russian fabricated facsimile of Hunter’s laptop.

The 2020 Biden campaign along with an ex-CIA head rounded up “51 intelligence authorities” to mislead the country into believing that Russian gremlins in the Kremlin had fabricated a fake laptop.

Ponder that absurd fantasy: Moscow supposedly had created fake nude pictures, fake photos of Hunter’s drug use, and fake email and text messages from Hunter to the other Bidens.

The media preposterously convinced the country that the Russians and by extension Donald Trump had once again sandbagged the Biden campaign.

No apologies followed when the FBI later admitted it had kept the laptop under wraps for more than a year, knew it was authentic, and yet said nothing as the media and former spooks misled the country and warped an election.

Now we are enmeshed in at least four court trials on cooked-up charges that could as easily apply to a host of Democrats as to Trump.

For the last eight years, a discredited media has never expressed remorse for any of the damage they did to the country. And they will not again, when their latest mythological indictments are eventually exposed.

[gaykarstaagforever]

Wagner update:

We don't get reliable information out of the Putinverse and there are new rumors and suppositions every day, but

It seems that right now, Prigozhin went from being in Belarus briefly to being back in St. Petersburg, and isn't facing any charges. And Belarus offered Wagner fighters an old Soviet army camp there, and they were supposed to move there, but just haven't, and are still in Ukraine. I guess still active in the war. I assume the soldiers who marched on Moscow with Prigozhin just...went back there? And haven't faced any charges either.

Meanwhile there has been a purge of some kind of people in the regular army, eliminating anyone who supported Prigozhin's rebellion.

There are also rumors that Putin wants Prigozhin assassinated but Putin wants everyone to think he is that sort of guy so it doesn't mean much. Like, sure. But if he hasn't done that already, he clearly has other plans for this.

My guess is that Prigozhin's Rebellion actually worked the way he intended. It made the point that the regular army needs to support Wagner in their racist war-crimes that are the invasion of Ukraine. Putin had sided with the generals against Wagner, but when Prigozhin refused to roll over for them, Putin suddenly realized how valuable Wagner and Prigozhin is to this thing he started and can't end. Even if they remain an independent militia, he goddamn needs them. Because the regular Russian army is dogshit. The WHOLE THING was that Wagner was supposed to submit to regular army command; Prigozhin refused. It was never an anti-Wagner thing until Prigozhin told the generals to go fuck themselves.

This really was a slap-fight between competing Russian military contingents that Putin let get out of hand. And now he's stepped up to sort it out. Yes, Prigozhin pissed him off with the rebellion, but Prigozhin has the loyalty of his guys and Putin needs those guys. So Prigozhin is probably safe until Putin can figure out how to replace him with someone else. Which could be tricky since the Wagner guys are in large part personally loyal to Prigozhin.

The regular army goons who backed Prigozhin involved themselves in this shit and aren't vital to the war effort (because they are toadie fuck-ups in general), so Putin has to get rid of them: they can't be trusted to sit still and shut up when the rowboat flips over.

The Lukashenko connection here was either a plot by Putin to get Prigozhin to settle down for a minute so they could talk, or maybe Lukashenko legit offered to mediate and Putin took advantage of it. Either way, it provided a show method of diffusing the situation and making Putin look more secure than he is. And it was certainly never more than that.

I don't think Putin is at actual risk of losing power. All of these factions seem pro-Putin, because they are all rabid Russian Supremacists who want to rebuild the Soviet Union, but with more them building giant mansions. And that is all Putin is. Where he's at risk is losing control of the various competing factions of the military. These guys already get away with siphoning money off into secret bank accounts and being creative about when and how they follow orders. They are more gang members than soldiers. Putin has to continuously balance out heavy-handed control of them and letting them get away with shit so they think they are "with" him and stay loyal. Like a mob kingpin has to do. Because Russia has been a mobocracy since Putin took power. That's how he runs things.

This whole mess was basically a mafia civil war. It exposes Putin's weaknesses. That could potentially put him at risk NOW, if someone realizes the old man is slipping. But I still think they all still need each-other to do whatever it is they are all jointly failing at. Putin is safe until someone stronger stands up, and Putin still seems good at cutting those guys down. And Prigozhin had no interest in being that guy in the first place.

[qqueenofhades]

Okay, since I was tagged in this, I'll weigh in.

First, the original source is just a screenshot of a tweet. Because we need to get better about our information literacy practices, I went and got the original text of the resolution, which you can find here or on Rep. Ogles's website (ogles.house.gov, but I don't recommend it, as it's Trump ass-kissing central). This is because Ogles is a notorious and egregious Trump toady for whom this is basically par for the course. He is an obnoxious Trump sycophant. Publicity stunts to prove his MAGA loyalty is what he does.

Next: yes, this proposes amending the constitution to let Trump serve three terms (which would invariably become more). Yes, this is what happened with Putin in Russia. However, once again, we need to be more mindful about the tone of the information we are sharing and what we are suggesting is possible as a result. I have written before about how the Russian and American political systems are not very similar, and saying "well, Russia has elections and a president and a constitution that was amended to let that president serve for life so that could/would happen in America" is misleading. I don't have the space to go into the whole comparative analysis here, but I'll just point out that America (for now) still in fact does have genuinely competitive elections and a real opposition party, and this is not remotely something that could be pulled off in the present timeframe. Putin pulled this stunt after a decade-plus of ruthlessly consolidating his power on the back of Yeltsin's brief and disastrous privatization in the 90s and 500 years of absolute dictatorship (whether by the Russian Empire or the USSR) before that. By the time he did so, he had also successfully organized the Duma and the State Council (the houses of the Russian parliament) to be full of loyal stooges who would obediently rubber-stamp whatever he said, which continues today. There has never been a real or functional democracy in Russia, full stop.

Of course, you may say, Trump and co. are trying to destroy democracy in America, so we may end up like that! Which! We might, it's very possible, especially if we fall asleep at the wheel! Again, however, the fact that Ogles filed this as a publicity stunt two weeks ago (it's from January 23) does not mean we are in imminent danger of it happening. It also recognizes the fact that they would need a constitutional amendment to make it happen, and as I have said before, the process for full ratification of a new constitutional amendment is deliberately very high. Two-thirds of both the House and Senate and three-fourths (38) of the 50 states need to ratify it (after those same number of states call a constitutional convention) for it to take effect. They do not pass by one simple majority vote in the House and/or Senate, and even in the current congress, there's no guarantee it would be a majority. The GOP has a majority of something like 2 in the House (pending special elections to fill vacancies) and 4 in the Senate. This is razor-thin. Also, I looked at the original text of Ogles's resolution. There's nothing even saying that it was even referred to the relevant committee (the line that should be filled in there is a blank). Because again, landmark legislation does not happen by one idiot MAGA congressman eagerly tonguing Trump's senile orange ass as an inauguration gift of feudal fealty. (Like, if the Orange Fuhrer actually makes it to the end of his second term, he'll be 82, and he's already demonstrably deranged. Are they going to Weekend at Bernie's him for this putative third term, or...?)

Also: The last successful constitutional amendment was the 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992, and it referred to the salary of House members. Guess when it was first proposed? 1789. Yeah, it took literally 200 years to become the law of the land. Hmm.

Lastly, if you're still worried and want to make absolutely sure this doesn't happen, then: vote for Democrats in the 2026 midterms. Even if they literally do nothing and just sit there, they will ensure that this is never brought up for a vote, let alone any of Trump's other legislative bad ideas (national trans ban, national abortion ban, putting migrants in jail for life, what have you). Again: I am not saying that you should not be worried about this, that you should just brush it off, that you should ignore this repeated-yet-again clear statement of fascist intent, or anything else. But if you're panicking about this, then you're distracted from looking at anything else they're doing, and which might have a much more clear and present risk (such as Musk's smash-and-grab of classified information and Treasury data).

Trust me, if this or anything like it gets to the actual point where I think it's a real and present danger, then I will be sounding the all-hands-on-deck alarm like no tomorrow. But in the meantime, even if we're all scared, we gotta do better than posting a screenshot of an unsourced tweet with a "spread this and panic now" message. If you are scared, then take the time (such as I laid out above) to look into how the constitutional amendment process works, what would be necessary to ever ratify it (and which doesn't even take into account the mass opposition that would be mustered), what actually happened in Russia, or anything else. Information is power, so let's do it right.

Courage, etc.

Source

Transcript:

“BREAKING: A constitutional amendment has been filed allowing President Trump to seek a 3rd term in office.

"No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."

It was filed by Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN).

Don’t let this slip by unnoticed. This is not just “one extra term”, it’s a warning shot. It’s a red flag. It’s an omen.

They are slowly turning up the heat in the pan. Do not be the frog who sits denying it’s getting hotter.

One extra term will become two, two will become three, and three will eventually give way to lifelong reign of each president.

Fight. Fight for God’s sake.

Contact your local representative of congress. Convince them we do not want this.

We are going to end up in a dictatorship.

@ikiyou

Please help spread this. I don’t usually get political and I don’t usually ask for assistance but this is important and you have more reach.