As the Republican Party’s blockade of aid to Ukraine drags into its fourth month, the U.S. government under Pres. Joe Biden has found a clever new way to give Ukraine’s forces the weapons and ammunition they need to defend their country.
It is, in essence, an American version of Germany’s circular weapons trade—the so-called Ringtausch. The United States is gifting older surplus weapons to Greece with the understanding that Greece donates to Ukraine some of its own surplus weapons.
Greek media broke the news last week. According to the newspaper Kathimerini and other media, the Biden administration offered the Greek government three 87-foot Protector-class patrol boats, two Lockheed Martin C-130H airlifters, 10 Allison T56 turboprop engines for Lockheed P-3 patrol planes plus 60 M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and a consignment of transport trucks.
All this hardware is U.S. military surplus—and is available to Greece, free of charge, under a U.S. legal authority called “excess defense articles.” Federal law allows an American president to declare military systems surplus to need, assign them a value—potentially zero dollars—and give them away on the condition that the recipient transport them.
Fuck the republican traitor filth.
Pro-any other country than your own, and that you were elected to serve is traitorous. I’m not big on nation-states and all that stuff personally. And these folks very much are, so by their own definitions they are traitors. I am kind of amused by Sister City agreements, where cities share solutions, without any way to force the other to comply. It’s down right friendly anarchism.
Did you forget to take some meds or something? This is incomprehensible.
deleted by creator
Looks like schizo-posting is back on the menu!
The first 3 sentences are actually coherent. The last 2 too. But the first 3 don’t belong with the last 2. It’s like they’re 2 different posts.
Calling it a schitzo-post may have been a bit off, but I legit have no other words in my vocabulary to describe how weirdly off kilter their comment is. They went from some type of criticism of elected officials working with other countries only to skip over to an entirely different thing about sister city agreements. It just kinda is bizzare overall.
Though I sometimes pull the same shit, sleep deprivation and autism are a terrible combination when it comes to coherence.
Schizo stuff tends to be coherent, it’s just that it’s coherent in a frame of reference that exactly one person in the world gets. On the far end of the spectrum people just don’t have enough computation capacity to take your frame of reference into account – not because of lower capacity, but because there’s too much shit on their plate at the same time: Effort is focussed on keeping one’s own thoughts at least half-way straight while the external world is secondary. Whereas on the functioning (yes I’m going to use that word) end of the spectrum you probably learn somewhere in school age that you need to slow your mind down and sprinkle in a couple of useful metaphors so the normies can understand. Dunno if my subconscious is less bubbly than that of full-on schizophrenics, or I have natural talent processing things better, or a knack acquired by sheer luck, or just better at not giving a fuck about some things, but it’s definitely also a skill that can and absolutely should be honed.
For the curious, the EASE scale should give a good impression of how it looks from the inside.
Fuck the republican traitor filth.
Pro-any other country than your own, and that you were elected to serve is traitorous. I’m not big on nation-states and all that stuff personally. And these folks very much are, so by their own definitions they are traitors. I am kind of amused by Sister City agreements, where cities share solutions, without any way to force the other to comply. It’s down right friendly anarchism.
Looks like schizo-posting is back on the menu!
That’s got to be a bad AI bot in training, right?
deleted by creator
Biden: Does something good again
Repblicans, unable to stop him: “Sorry Putin, we failed you. This time.”
I hope Putin does the, “don’t fail me again… Republicans (mechanical breathing noises)” thing, and then they fail him again.
Putin: Also, you are to wear these clown shoes and refer to yourself as “Mary”.
Putin: I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
At least he used an ally instead of an enemy as Reagan did.
Technically Reagan did use an ally first: Israel. The Iranians were a little pissed when they saw the Israeli customs stamps on their weapons.
The middle men, so to speak. But not really the same, though in the same dodge the issue situation. The biggest difference being Reagan sent weapons illegally via a known declared enemy.
Iranian government is always pissed about something. Oh no a woman playing chess
Great news!
Apropos nothing:
The Republicans are falling in line with disgraced ex-president Donald Trump’s personal hatred of Ukraine—and equally personal fondness for authoritarian Russia. The Republicans’ allegiance to Trump—and therefore to dictators and military aggressors—wasn’t an issue for Ukraine until they narrowly gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 2022 elections. When earlier funding for Ukraine ran out in late December, Rep. Mike Johnson—the extremist House speaker—refused to put additional aid to a vote.
The direct language is a pleasant surprise, and honestly more than I expected from FORBES. Have they always been this willing to call out Trump and his enablers?
I’m surprised too. This is Forbes staff too, not a random contributor.
Remember when Republicans used to yell “better dead than red!” to show their hostility to the USSR and communism?
Now too many of them are preoccupied with twerking for the authoritarian roach that emerged from the USSR’s corpse (and which still has a lot in common with it).
Also, the Republican party is now the red party, which is pretty funny.
Nothing surprising for everyone who already knew that what they disliked about the USSR wasn’t really the totalitarianism, just the lower wealth unequality.
More so that sort loved the USSR: it provided the ultimate boogyman they could use to justify just about anything.
Accuse your political foes of being commies, and “investigate” them. Advance Christian nationalism by pointing at the “godless Soviets”. Need to get your political donors want some sweet defense contracts? – well we need weapons to fight the reds.
The USSR did the same thing with the “decadent west”.
And just as it was back then, the red menace was ALWAYS about distracting the masses away from voting against corporate interests
Wait, we can vote against corporate interests?
You can vote for whoever you want actually.
Don’t forget they changed the pledge allegiance to put in under God to shove another thing in the Russians face.
And the money
I don’t get what’s strange about this. They didn’t like commies, Russia is no longer even calling itself socialist, so why would they still be hostile to the Russians?
What if I told you all he funding we have given Ukraine has only harmed them?
Then I’d call you a complete liar with a weak grasp on reality, and a poor understanding of where and when you ought to open your ill-informed mouth, before I walked off and continued with my day, secure in the knowledge that you’re as wrong about something as it’s physically possible to be.
That’s what.
Sorry, too subtle. Go say that to the Russian shill but even more louder.
Then I’d call you ignorant with a weak grasp on facts.
Lol. You’re trying to troll but failing miserably.
If I am trolling and you keep responding then that means I am winning… Thank you!
Is that how the performance metrics work at those centers? If you do well do you get more potatoes?
Removed by mod
Like I said: failing miserably. An effective troll foments FUD. You are only receiving ridicule.
Like I said; if you think I am a troll and you respond then I win. I will take the W!
4 day old account, all but two comments are pro-russian. Guess lemmy is getting popular enough to attract attention from the Russian troll farms.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
It’s almost comical to see “leftists” scream about the lies that Trump and GOP tell - but if you suggest there was a diplomatic solution they explode immediately lol. War propaganda is working incredibly well these days and any pacifist notion is attacked as subversive and downvoted. Vast majority of millennials and gen Z are just as brainwashed and are murderous war mongers the boomers were.
PS: I’m really missing a fitting word for this. They are not fascists and nationalists or imperialists is too weak. War mongers sounds a bit lame too.
I think millenials and older know about how the left used to be the party of peace and the right was the war mongers. Now some of the rights is still warmongers but the left is just as bloodthirsty. Its like “Putin must pay!!! Send more Ukrainian young men to their death!!!”
You mean they don’t know about the left being pro peace? Or that they are overcompensating because they do know?
There is a documentary by Adam Curtis about how the rhetoric in geopolitics changed to good vs evil, not just Reagan but all the third way leftists. A very successful PR / brainwashing campaign.
But ever since Ukraine started this has massively changed on reddit which is supposedly “leftist”. Presumably the “science and technology of propaganda” is improving. If the Irak and Afghanistan happened today, there wouldn’t be any major opposition to it online. There wasn’t any in mainstream media either at the time, but back then the internet actually was less… warmongery?
I dont know if they dont know what the more traditional leftists believed in back in the 90s and earlier, or other interests have taken over their rhetoric, or if they are just using the oppressor - oppressed world view to pick Ukraine and Palestine. Do you think they got co-opted by big business interests or something else?
Umberto Ecco’s rule #8 of fascism: “The enemy is both strong and weak.”
Hey Republicans, which is it this time? Is Biden a demented old fool or a dictator? lol.
Dark Brandon strikes again.
For most of my lifetime, any American screeching about the President arming NATO allies in order to prevent Russian expansion into Europe would have been seen as a traitor.
Lead poisoning is a helluva drug.
Umberto “Eco”
They’re talking about the lesser known Umbero Ecco, the dolphin.
Umberto Echolocation
Good news. Fuck Republicans. Slava Ukraini.
The Republican way is to smugly grease palms, but the way around them is simply via Greece and shrug. 🤷🏼♂️
Slava Ukraini!
The Democrats outsmart Republicans yet again.
Next up: border secured just in time to win the November elections.
Define securing the border, because that goal post is mounted to a bullet train by republicans as long as trump isn’t president.
You think Biden closing the border as soon as he’s able is a good thing?
Like, you understand that wouldn’t just be a one time thing right? Future presidents could do it to, and Republicans actually do out things in motion in their first days.
I mean, Biden went from saying the border wasn’t an issue to saying we need that literally over night.
That doesn’t concern you?
I feel like that was just a dare to the Republicans. That way when they kill the bill, they can’t point to Biden as the cause.
This was my interpretation as well.
No
deleted by creator
But objectively, illegal immigration is at record high numbers.
No it isn’t. Not even close. This is just assuming that because Republicans say it is that it’s actually the worst its ever been. Somehow every presidential election it’s the worst its ever been and news organizations parrot the accusation without just calling them out on the BS.
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/the-facts-on-the-increase-in-illegal-immigration/
It would be good if you could cite a source that wasn’t almost 3 years old. It looks like since this article, monthly CBP encounters at the southern border have more than doubled:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters
They’re apprehending more because they’re more able to track them, not because there were more than in 2000. And at the same time the people being apprehended are much more likely to be seeking asylum (aka legal). We can’t know the precise number of illegal immigrants, but it’s pretty safe to say it’s no where near the 2000s.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1130841306/new-record-in-border-patrol-apprehensions
it’s mostly due to the hot economy, but American voters don’t understand that)
What?
The economy is propped up by record breaking fossil fuels drilling and corporations increasing prices 2-3x while not raising pay…
That’s something virtually every American is aware of right now…
And while Biden trying to brag about the economy hurts him. Either he doesn’t understand that very basic thing, or he doesn’t give two fucks about theaverage American, just corporations and billionaires.
Which has been a critique of American neoliberalism since James Carville started spouting all this stupid shit to begin with
Holy hyperbole batman. Prices rose by about 15% on average and wages rose as well, but not as much (between 7 and 12% depending on the source).
Which given 10 years of almost no inflation and moderate wage growth, is not that surprising.
Unemployment at a 60-year low, real wages at a 50-year high. That’s not to say there aren’t problems (largely the cost of housing, education and healthcare eating up all the gains over the last half century), but the economy is good, Jack.
Haven’t you heard? Statistics are globalist propaganda 🙄
deleted by creator
No, the person I replied to said increased immigration is due to our “hot economy”…
But it’s not, because all that money is going into a very small amount of pockets.
deleted by creator
Didn’t you just say you weren’t American? Why are you discrediting the experience of people living in the US?
Oh wow…
Yeah. I don’t think me explaining anything else to you is gonna help then bud.
The difference is I’m going to do something so I never accidentally try again.
Or the fact that he can just bypass congress to give weapons to Israel, or the record oil extraction during his first term? Dems pretending their party isn’t actively destroying the world is wild.
Are we still pretending bOtH sIdEs or are we just skipping straight to “democrats are evil don’t vote for them” now?
As a Canadian, yeah both of your right wing parties are essentially the same. Brown kids will be bombed and oil will be pumped.
And these lies will lead to trump again. Thanks for that
Dems will lead themselves there, just like they did in 2016. Stop blaming voters for your party’s incompetence.
I’m blaming morons spreading discontent and shitty ass ideas and that’s fully fair. Thanks for changing the subject though
where is the lie?
Trump definitely would dial it back, so you’re totally not a bad faith liar after all!
>are we just skipping straight to “democrats are evil don’t vote for them” now?
i’ve been there over a decade.
Both parties are evil because this is an evil country that must be stopped.
Removed by mod
Nothing screams serious/authority like a video game reference username lol.
I was wondering when someone would finally call me out on that lol
But I’m quite serious about hating America. No one should be president and we should do everything possible to make that a reality.
Seems like it’s usually just you and I down here lol. Let me guess, disillusioned American?
These comments look so much like the comments from a sports team sub.
Biden totally should have ran the ball there at the end, then Trump wouldn’t have enough clock left before the end to win! It’s like reducing politics down to it’s absolute dumbest, I can’t imagine why more and more people are choosing not to participate.
I love seeing Biden copy republican ideas. Really great to see the bipartisan effort to fuck people over.
“uh actually I really care about border security now”
Jfc these peoples ideals change as the wind blows. All it takes is a geriatric to tell them to care about it
Hell fucking yeah!
-Turkey disliked that-
deleted by creator
It’s such a geopolitical mess because their geography is vital but that same reason is why they’ve historically been an enemy so there is a lot of bad blood and distrust
They get a pass on colonialism and genocide, but you draw the line at breaking embargos?
I think the whole Turkey having started buying Russian armaments predates the current embargo. Like, I can recall them buying some Russian anti-air defense shit designed to down NATO aircraft about 5 years ago or so.
So it’s been more so about Erdoğan trying to assert some weird ass attempt at displayingf dominance. That fucker’s been the president for a decade straight now, looking awfully lot like a despot at this point. And they’re a NATO member right there, mmhm. Yup.
You ignoring the Armenian genocide or the invasion of Cypress is really weird.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Turkey and Greece got beef going back to the bronze age. Two of the best armed members of the EU, with those guns pointed at each other. This isn’t the first time Ukraine has benefited from that situation.
You’re thinking of Persians - back in the bronze age, proto-Turks were still in central Asia. Also, Turkey is not an EU member, you’re thinking NATO.
Reminds me of Charlie Wilson’s war.
Man, Sorkin doesn’t miss. I wish there were more movies like this.
Sounds like I’m watching this today
Moderate Rebels 6.0
deleted by creator
Yet you cared enough to reply
They (bi-partisan) are coming for your social security though. No money for the people, only wars.
https://twitter.com/SSWorks/status/1729584226658381828?t=w2RFSDx5k8auaZId2WWFYA
