To be fair, we have a former actor and comedian as the president. The difference is he isn’t a fascist piece of human garbage, not so much in the career paths.
From what I’ve read, Zelensky as comedian made intelligent political and anti corruption criticism. Making jokes about the bad things in life, highlighting them, setting the stage for something being done about those problems. Broader than his on screen personality, he had middle class beginnings and on the back of his comedy work, he build a successful career as TV producer/executive. You probably know more about this than I do.
Trump as TV personality looked more like the most clueless person in the room, while all the actual work was done by others behind the scenes. No intelligence, no social commentary. Before his role in the apprentice, Trump had started his business career as a Nepo baby, and as a businessman he had failed every venture that he had tried, each time leaving a bloodbath of unpaid bills behind, a reverse Midas. And once his face was known from TV, he started with large scale scams like Trump University.
John Oliver is the ambassador from the UK and between Jon and John every 9/11 responder gets lifetime care and UA gets every bit of Soviet killing machinery we have lying around Europe along with a carrier full of 35s for them to train on, training paid for by cutting off aid to Israel and sending it to Kyiv instead.
The last supposedly Ukrainian person I talked to here was very anti Zelenskyy and wanted him to just lay down arms. What’s your opinion on the matter? Do you want your country to keep fighting? Do you qualify for the draft yourself?
I myself would be neither for nor against Zelenskyy, if it was peace time. Normally, there would have been elections last year, so there would be a non zero chance we would have had a different president already, if not for the war. But, since that’s legally not possible right now, here we are, and I’m not about to go protest in the streets demanding to have elections as soon as possible.
That said, I am very much against being occupied and invaded. While also not willing to be drafted myself, since I know I would be quite useless on the battlefield. So the best I can do right now (to help in the war, that is) is to keep donating money for the equipment for our army.
I recognize I’m being hypocritical, since I wish to be protected without having the resolve to enlist myself. But I also recognize that, were I to enlist, my value in actually protecting Ukrainian lives would be very low.
Oh, they weren’t meant as loaded. Thing is there are people claiming that Ukrainians, particularly ones eligible for draft or with family members eligible for draft, would much prefer for Zelenskyy to just give up, and people see him as a dictator.
As someone who isn’t eligible for the draft and doesn’t live in the country it’s easy for me to say I want you guys to keep on fighting for your freedom. I think a lot of us in the Baltics don’t acknowledge it to ourselves that our support for Ukraine is probably also motivated by the fact that we want to see Russia’s military capabilities weakened, not just because we want to see Ukrainians thrive. That’s why it’s also important to ask what you yourselves want.
Given the current state of Ukraine as a going concern
Three successful years of holding their own against everything Russia can throw at them? I’d say that’s freakin’ amazing and a ringing endorsement of Zelenskyy’s leadership!
Is that what the Russian/Ukraine front looks like to you? Seems like they’ve been feeding their young men into a meat grinder so they can lose hundreds of miles of territory on a basket of false promises from DC. They aren’t holding their own, they’re being slaughtered at the speed of Russian artillery.
REP. THOMAS MASSIE: Well, in a classified briefing, I stood up and asked what the casualties were on the Ukrainian side, and in that meeting I believe, you had representatives from the intelligence community, and they were briefing us, and they went out of their way to tell us how many Russian casualties there were, and they would not answer my question of how many Ukrainian casualties there were.
And this was a briefing to Congress in a classified setting. They really didn’t have an excuse, other than they weren’t really sure, which seems like an incredible lie. So then a few months later, I’m in the Speaker’s office, and I asked the Speaker if he knew the number of casualties in Ukraine? He began telling me how many Russian casualties there were. I said, Do you know how many Ukrainian casualties there are? And he said, No. I said, Have they ever told you? And he said, No. I said, Have you ever asked? He said, I should ask. So the Speaker of the House doesn’t even know. Didn’t even know at the time how many casualties there were. And if you ask, for instance, an AI assistant, how many Ukrainian casualties there are, even the AI assistants here in our country can’t tell you how many. At the time when I drafted this, AIs came up with wildly different numbers because they’re relying on everything that’s been published. And there’s virtually nothing reliable that’s been published.
…
MASSIE: We’re just being fed propaganda in these classified briefings. And if other members of Congress couldn’t see that when I asked the question, then shame on them. Part of the reason I asked that question in that setting, was to show the other members of Congress that they’re just giving us one side to try and motivate us to keep sending the money and weapons. I think it’s obvious that they’re just feeding us propaganda in classified settings, and then I think it’s also true that the Speaker himself has been a subject of propaganda and lacks the curiosity to even question the narrative that we’re being fed.
They don’t. They’re overdue for elections. Their borders are blown. Their population is a diaspora when it isn’t being press ganged onto the front lines. Their territory is being auctioned off to the lowest bidder.
Zelenskyy’s refused to stand for reelection in no small part because he knows how wildly unpopular he has become.
You’re picking out negative things (and frankly making up others) but overlooking the most obvious and important positive. There’s no russian lapdog running the government of Ukraine and the people are still Ukrainian. The people of Ukraine kicked out the last Putin lap dog and they have no desire for another and their actions to-date are still in effect. If the people of Ukraine wanted to be russian, they could be in a a fraction of a second.
They continue to choose NOT to be and have done so for more than 3 years now. That is proof positive of continued success.
Ah yes, because clearly Zelenskyy is solely to blame for the current state of Ukraine. I guess he’s mind controlling half of the world leaders simultaneously and playing 5D chess with everyone.
One would think you’re his biggest fan the way you’re giving him credit for everything that’s happening in the world.
Ah yes, because clearly Zelenskyy is solely to blame for the current state of Ukraine.
Success has a thousand fathers. Failure is an orphan. Obviously, nobody is responsible for Ukraine except the villainous ork monster Vladimir Putin and his tribe of savages.
Zelenskyy certainly didn’t commit to an escalation in the conflict that his country couldn’t handle or trust a bunch of NATO state department officials who were more interested in using Ukraine for weapons testing than inclusion in a European commons. And how could any conscript forced up to the front lines because he couldn’t bribe his commanding officer have anything to complain about in how Zelenskyy’s military leadership has run the war.
One would think you’re his biggest fan
Is there any tyrant I haven’t loved? Muammar Gaddafi? Saddam Hussein? Ruhollah Khomeini? Daniel Ortega? Jacobo Árbenz?
You’d almost think I’m against these horrifying pointless military conflicts on principle.
Seeing as you’re against military conflicts (all of which are pointless and horrifying, on that I agree), maybe that anger should be directed against the person who actually started the full scale invasion. Unless you’re implying that Zelenskyy “escalated” the war by not immediately surrendering to Putin.
maybe that anger should be directed against the person who actually started the full scale invasion
To what end? To further justify another three years of slaughter?
Zelenskyy fucked up by escalating the border conflict with Russia. Putin fucked up by charging into a quagmire. Western Europe piled in to squander billions on slaughter. Ukraine took its pound of flesh through 2022 and had an opportunity to sue for peace, end the conflict, and secure its sovereignty, but backed down when Blinken scuttled the deal. And then we spent the next two years accomplishing nothing but nightmare after nightmare.
At every point, every state actor involved decided the best response to the situation was to double-down. And what did it win them? Americans lost their civil government. Ukraine lost the Donbas and its soveriengty. Russia lost hundreds of thousands of its young people. Germany lost its cheap energy and may lose its liberal governance.
“Maybe blame the guy who started it!” gets you nothing. Its just another excuse to extend the conflict. To double down. To insist we need another year of butchery in Eastern Europe.
End the fucking war. You don’t have to like the guy on the other side of the table to do the right thing.
So… let’s appease the aggressor, yeah? By that logic, every war ever should have ended instantly by the defending side surrendering.
Yes, I’m “blaming the guy who started it” because he’s also the guy who can end it. Putin can literally end the war with one order. But he will not, because he’s not looking for a peace deal. He’s looking for annihilation, and that has been the case since before 2022.
Your victim blaming logic must have required some astonishing mental gymnastics to pull through. It must be quite comforting to live in the world where you can stop wars by just asking the people who are launching missiles at your cities to pretty please stop.
By that logic, every war ever should have ended instantly by the defending side surrendering.
Where would we be if the Germans, the Brits, and the Russians hadn’t stood their ground in 1914? I’m so glad nobody surrendered until 17 million people had been slaughtered. And without that glorious cacophony of violence, who would have so resented their defeat as to kick off WW2 two decades later?
Christ, can you even imagine what kind of hellscape we’d be living in if the 30 Years War had only lasted two weeks? Or the Seven Years War hadn’t burned down half of French Canada? Or the French had bowed out of Vietnam gracefully rather than handing the baton to the Japanese and then the Americans over the next fifty years? What kind of nightmare would we live in if the KMT and the Imperial Japanese hadn’t torn Korea to shreds?
You’re so fucking right. What we need is more wars! Qatar and Saudi Arabia should start bombing each other. Iran and Israel need to open fire. How long can the good people along the US/Mexico border endure this agonizing peace?
Your victim blaming logic must have required some astonishing mental gymnastics
Its so incredibly simple to say “Stop killing people”. Sue for peace at the first opportunity. End the violence as soon as possible. Quit building all these fucking war machines to begin with, while you’re at it. The logic is so straightforward and crystal clear. Go back to 2021 and negotiate a ceasefire on day one. The peace dividends alone will pay for whatever wrongs you feel one side or the other have inflicted.
To be fair, we have a former actor and comedian as the president. The difference is he isn’t a fascist piece of human garbage, not so much in the career paths.
From what I’ve read, Zelensky as comedian made intelligent political and anti corruption criticism. Making jokes about the bad things in life, highlighting them, setting the stage for something being done about those problems. Broader than his on screen personality, he had middle class beginnings and on the back of his comedy work, he build a successful career as TV producer/executive. You probably know more about this than I do.
Trump as TV personality looked more like the most clueless person in the room, while all the actual work was done by others behind the scenes. No intelligence, no social commentary. Before his role in the apprentice, Trump had started his business career as a Nepo baby, and as a businessman he had failed every venture that he had tried, each time leaving a bloodbath of unpaid bills behind, a reverse Midas. And once his face was known from TV, he started with large scale scams like Trump University.
Those are 2 very different career paths.
Yeah it’s the difference between John Stewart and Steve Harvey
Man, I fucking hate Steve Harvey. He’s such a piece of shit.
There’s a timeline where Jon Stewart is POTUS and he and Zelensky have already put Putin where he belongs in the Hague.
John Oliver is the ambassador from the UK and between Jon and John every 9/11 responder gets lifetime care and UA gets every bit of Soviet killing machinery we have lying around Europe along with a carrier full of 35s for them to train on, training paid for by cutting off aid to Israel and sending it to Kyiv instead.
The last supposedly Ukrainian person I talked to here was very anti Zelenskyy and wanted him to just lay down arms. What’s your opinion on the matter? Do you want your country to keep fighting? Do you qualify for the draft yourself?
Those seem to be quite loaded questions.
I myself would be neither for nor against Zelenskyy, if it was peace time. Normally, there would have been elections last year, so there would be a non zero chance we would have had a different president already, if not for the war. But, since that’s legally not possible right now, here we are, and I’m not about to go protest in the streets demanding to have elections as soon as possible.
That said, I am very much against being occupied and invaded. While also not willing to be drafted myself, since I know I would be quite useless on the battlefield. So the best I can do right now (to help in the war, that is) is to keep donating money for the equipment for our army.
I recognize I’m being hypocritical, since I wish to be protected without having the resolve to enlist myself. But I also recognize that, were I to enlist, my value in actually protecting Ukrainian lives would be very low.
Oh, they weren’t meant as loaded. Thing is there are people claiming that Ukrainians, particularly ones eligible for draft or with family members eligible for draft, would much prefer for Zelenskyy to just give up, and people see him as a dictator.
As someone who isn’t eligible for the draft and doesn’t live in the country it’s easy for me to say I want you guys to keep on fighting for your freedom. I think a lot of us in the Baltics don’t acknowledge it to ourselves that our support for Ukraine is probably also motivated by the fact that we want to see Russia’s military capabilities weakened, not just because we want to see Ukrainians thrive. That’s why it’s also important to ask what you yourselves want.
Given the current state of Ukraine as a going concern, I can’t imagine anyone seriously bragging about their vote for Zelenskyy.
Gave us a good hard look at what the Jon Stewart Presidency would have looked like.
Three successful years of holding their own against everything Russia can throw at them? I’d say that’s freakin’ amazing and a ringing endorsement of Zelenskyy’s leadership!
Is that what the Russian/Ukraine front looks like to you? Seems like they’ve been feeding their young men into a meat grinder so they can lose hundreds of miles of territory on a basket of false promises from DC. They aren’t holding their own, they’re being slaughtered at the speed of Russian artillery.
Tom Massie: Washington purposely blacking out Ukraine casualty data
…
They still have national sovereignty, a society, a culture, and representation in government. Damn right they are succeeding!
They don’t. They’re overdue for elections. Their borders are blown. Their population is a diaspora when it isn’t being press ganged onto the front lines. Their territory is being auctioned off to the lowest bidder.
Zelenskyy’s refused to stand for reelection in no small part because he knows how wildly unpopular he has become.
You’re picking out negative things (and frankly making up others) but overlooking the most obvious and important positive. There’s no russian lapdog running the government of Ukraine and the people are still Ukrainian. The people of Ukraine kicked out the last Putin lap dog and they have no desire for another and their actions to-date are still in effect. If the people of Ukraine wanted to be russian, they could be in a a fraction of a second.
They continue to choose NOT to be and have done so for more than 3 years now. That is proof positive of continued success.
Ah yes, because clearly Zelenskyy is solely to blame for the current state of Ukraine. I guess he’s mind controlling half of the world leaders simultaneously and playing 5D chess with everyone.
One would think you’re his biggest fan the way you’re giving him credit for everything that’s happening in the world.
Success has a thousand fathers. Failure is an orphan. Obviously, nobody is responsible for Ukraine except the villainous ork monster Vladimir Putin and his tribe of savages.
Zelenskyy certainly didn’t commit to an escalation in the conflict that his country couldn’t handle or trust a bunch of NATO state department officials who were more interested in using Ukraine for weapons testing than inclusion in a European commons. And how could any conscript forced up to the front lines because he couldn’t bribe his commanding officer have anything to complain about in how Zelenskyy’s military leadership has run the war.
Is there any tyrant I haven’t loved? Muammar Gaddafi? Saddam Hussein? Ruhollah Khomeini? Daniel Ortega? Jacobo Árbenz?
You’d almost think I’m against these horrifying pointless military conflicts on principle.
Seeing as you’re against military conflicts (all of which are pointless and horrifying, on that I agree), maybe that anger should be directed against the person who actually started the full scale invasion. Unless you’re implying that Zelenskyy “escalated” the war by not immediately surrendering to Putin.
To what end? To further justify another three years of slaughter?
Zelenskyy fucked up by escalating the border conflict with Russia. Putin fucked up by charging into a quagmire. Western Europe piled in to squander billions on slaughter. Ukraine took its pound of flesh through 2022 and had an opportunity to sue for peace, end the conflict, and secure its sovereignty, but backed down when Blinken scuttled the deal. And then we spent the next two years accomplishing nothing but nightmare after nightmare.
At every point, every state actor involved decided the best response to the situation was to double-down. And what did it win them? Americans lost their civil government. Ukraine lost the Donbas and its soveriengty. Russia lost hundreds of thousands of its young people. Germany lost its cheap energy and may lose its liberal governance.
“Maybe blame the guy who started it!” gets you nothing. Its just another excuse to extend the conflict. To double down. To insist we need another year of butchery in Eastern Europe.
End the fucking war. You don’t have to like the guy on the other side of the table to do the right thing.
So… let’s appease the aggressor, yeah? By that logic, every war ever should have ended instantly by the defending side surrendering.
Yes, I’m “blaming the guy who started it” because he’s also the guy who can end it. Putin can literally end the war with one order. But he will not, because he’s not looking for a peace deal. He’s looking for annihilation, and that has been the case since before 2022.
Your victim blaming logic must have required some astonishing mental gymnastics to pull through. It must be quite comforting to live in the world where you can stop wars by just asking the people who are launching missiles at your cities to pretty please stop.
Where would we be if the Germans, the Brits, and the Russians hadn’t stood their ground in 1914? I’m so glad nobody surrendered until 17 million people had been slaughtered. And without that glorious cacophony of violence, who would have so resented their defeat as to kick off WW2 two decades later?
Christ, can you even imagine what kind of hellscape we’d be living in if the 30 Years War had only lasted two weeks? Or the Seven Years War hadn’t burned down half of French Canada? Or the French had bowed out of Vietnam gracefully rather than handing the baton to the Japanese and then the Americans over the next fifty years? What kind of nightmare would we live in if the KMT and the Imperial Japanese hadn’t torn Korea to shreds?
You’re so fucking right. What we need is more wars! Qatar and Saudi Arabia should start bombing each other. Iran and Israel need to open fire. How long can the good people along the US/Mexico border endure this agonizing peace?
Its so incredibly simple to say “Stop killing people”. Sue for peace at the first opportunity. End the violence as soon as possible. Quit building all these fucking war machines to begin with, while you’re at it. The logic is so straightforward and crystal clear. Go back to 2021 and negotiate a ceasefire on day one. The peace dividends alone will pay for whatever wrongs you feel one side or the other have inflicted.
Coming from a “Poland and the Soviet Union should have just surrendered! 😭” Nazi sympathizer, lmao.