Why 30 percent of the House GOP voted
against reaffirming NATO support
Posted By: Jagermeister, 4/6/2022 5:40:25 PM
A quarter-century ago, the U.S. Senate was faced with a major question: whether to ratify expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which would bring the alliance closer to Russia’s border. The public generally supported NATO expansion, as did both President Bill Clinton and his 1996 GOP opponent, Bob Dole. Still, one foreign policy expert at the time said the ratification would require a “feat of magic”: Support for NATO expansion was shallow, and senators had hugely varied priorities.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Jagermeister"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Most Recent Articles posted by
Jagermeister"
A quarter-century ago, the U.S. Senate was faced with a major question: whether to ratify expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which would bring the alliance closer to Russia’s border. The public generally supported NATO expansion, as did both President Bill Clinton and his 1996 GOP opponent, Bob Dole. Still, one foreign policy expert at the time said the ratification would require a “feat of magic”: Support for NATO expansion was shallow, and senators had hugely varied priorities.
A satellite image of Bucha in Ukraine appears to show bodies lying in the street nearly two weeks before the Russians left the town.
The image from 19 March, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the BBC, directly contradicts Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's claim that footage of bodies in Bucha, that has emerged in recent days, was "staged" after the Russians withdrew.
The satellite image shows objects that appear to be bodies in the exact locations where they were subsequently found by Ukrainian forces when they regained control of the town north of Kyiv.
Don’t bet on the end of Vladimir Putin
2 replies
Almost five decades ago I was sent on my first assignment to Moscow as a wet-behind-the-ears foreign correspondent for Reuters, and was told in farewell drinks at the pub just how lucky I was. Surely, said my fellow hacks, I would witness the end of Leonid Brezhnev, the evil man in the Kremlin. Well, end-Brezhnev turned out to be mid-Brezhnev as he staggered on and on. < snip > My bet, though, is that we have reached mid-Putin not end-Putin. And that even when the war is over, Russia is set to get darker and nastier.
A California man wanted by the FBI for allegedly assaulting police officers during the US Capitol riot has been granted asylum in Belarus, officials said Wednesday. Evan Neumann, 49 — who fled his homeland after being charged with 14 counts linked to the attack — was given permission by the country to stay there “indefinitely,” according to the The Belarusian Telegraph Agency.
Paleos and Putin
5 replies
Vladimir Putin has behaved outrageously no matter how defective American foreign policy has been and no matter how repugnant neoconservative rhetoric may sound.
As a card-carrying member of the Old Right for the last 50 years, having suffered the slings and indignities that come with it, I am responding to other members of my fraternity who can’t bring themselves to condemn Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine and his destruction of its people.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 upended political discourse in the United States. Although his election affected debates in both domestic and foreign affairs, the impact on the latter seems to have been the most consequential. As one commenter noted, Trump’s election has led to the bonfire of many of the established concepts of American foreign policy and grand strategy. The bonfire continues to rage.
The Biden administration has spent the last two weeks publicly censuring and sanctioning Russia over its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Yet even as it engaged in evermore shrill public denunciations of the undoubted evils of Vladimir Putin, it was simultaneously working hand-in-glove with the Russian dictator to finalize a new agreement with Iran over its nuclear program.
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Disney family member calls on company
to ‘muster the courage’ to counter
conservative outrage 43 replies
to ‘muster the courage’ to counter
conservative outrage 43 replies
The granddaughter of Disney co-founder Roy E Disney has called on her family’s company to “muster the courage” when it comes to taking a stance on important issues. In opinion piece for The Washington Post published on Friday, Abigail Disney pointed to outrage over Disney’s response to Florida’s so-called “Dont Say Gay” bill as a reason why bosses should speak out on issues including LGBT+ rights. (Snip) “To find its way again, Disney needs to muster the courage to weather the momentary outrage of people who will not be satisfied until they have erased an entire class of human beings,”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed Thursday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, kissing President Biden on the cheek and holding his hand did not meet the White House’s definition of "close contact."
"How can you guys say that President Biden was not a close contact with speaker Pelosi when there's video of the speaker kissing him?" Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Psaki on Thursday. "Their definition of it is 15 minutes of contact within a set period of time, within six feet," Psaki responded, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of "close contact." "It did not meet that bar."
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Thursday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that some Republican senator’s questions to judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her nomination hearing for U.S. Supreme Court were “insulting and demeaning and degrading, or just plain filthy.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “How much more difficult was this process for Ketanji Brown Jackson as a black woman, especially during those totally and incredibly partisan times.”
Booker said, “There is a lot of hurt in America and a lot of private of people who were qualified who are competent and who were disrespected, disregarded or just plain dissed frankly.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had a threatening message for parents and states who are standing in the way of gender reassignment surgeries for their children. There will be consequences. Watch: (Video) “Last item for you before we get to your questions,” Psaki said. “Across the country, as we’ve talked about a bit in here, Republican elected officials are engaging in disturbing, cynical trend of attacking vulnerable transgender kids for purely partisan political reasons.”“Today, in Alabama, instead of focusing on critical kitchen table issues
Convention of States gaining ground
32 replies
America’s Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention knew any form of government they created would become corrupt. (snip) known abuses that would arise were the reason for the Amendment process being able to take two distinct routes. One through Congress, before proposed Amendments reached the states. The other was strictly through the states, giving Congress no role other than calling for a Convention of the States.
The Founders, in essence, gave a third option they did not have when rebelling against Britain. The power of the states to curtail governmental abuse.
President Biden in a made-for-TV sweet moment called Vice President Kamala Harris the first 'really smart decision' he made in his presidency as he spoke during a celebration for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson being confirmed to the Supreme Court. Harris introduced him as she told of the 'deep sense of pride and joy' she felt watching the votes roll in to confirm Jackson to the high court. 'We are standing here in great part because of one President Joe Biden and because of Joe Biden's vision and leadership and commitment a lifelong commitment to building a better America,'
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley warned Tuesday that the “potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing,” during an appearance before the House Armed Services Committee.
During his testimony, Milley argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “the greatest threat to peace and security of Europe and perhaps the world,” during his 42 years of service in the U.S. military.
There are a lot of indicators that the November midterms are going to be a big red wave for the Republicans.
From the November wins in Virginia to the historic win this week of the first Republican county executive in decades in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, a lot of things are trending toward the Republicans.
People are largely fed up with Joe Biden and the Democrats according to virtually every poll, with numbers in the basement. The polls are also indicating that Americans are trending toward Republicans leading in their choice for Congress.
Now there’s some more bad news for Democrats and it’s a very big sign.
National Review’s Kevin Williamson is urging conservatives to divorce, or at least, separate, for a time, from the Republican Party -- that is, from the Donald Trump-led Republican Party.
In a recent column, Williamson claims that what he calls “sensible conservatives” twenty years ago or so “could take a realistic, instrumental view of the GOP and find it reasonably useful for our ends.” But not today. Not when the Republican Party consists of “vulgar” populists and “infantile” nationalists who loathe free trade, free speech, the U.S. military, and libertarians.
Fox News Doctored Clips of Obama’s Visit
to the White House to Make It Seem Like
Biden Was Lost 27 replies
to the White House to Make It Seem Like
Biden Was Lost 27 replies
Barack Obama visited the White House for the first time since he left office on Tuesday. He was there to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, as well as to watch President Biden sign an executive order aimed at improving the law. Obama’s return created plenty of commotion, and for Fox News and the rest of the right-wing ecosphere, a fresh opportunity to cast Biden as a weaker, watered-down version of the former president.
The Republican National Committee shared two clips of the visit that quickly went viral. The first shows an ostensibly confused Biden ambling around the stage as Obama holds court behind him.
I recently took my twelve-year-old for his annual check-up. The process was rather routine, except for two distinct differences. First, he needed three vaccinations, all of which he received and second, I wrote “No” across a form that the nurse handed him without my permission.
You see, the nurse bypassed me and handed my son two pieces of paper and a pen. She asked him to answer two questions on one and then the entirety of the next. She then proceeded to leave the room. Not once did she ask me to look at the forms prior to handing them to my son
Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief says the “core founding principle” of the United States is “equity,” and that he is building an immigration system built on “equity.”“It is all about achieving equity, which is really the core founding principle of our country,” Alejandro Mayorkas declared at a meeting hosted by Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.“We, as a Department of Homeland Security [DHS], are your Department of Homeland Security as much as anyone else’s and we need to live that in the equity that we demonstrate,” he told the mostly black audience.
Comments:
Why would Reps vote against NATO? Because the bill contains other provisions: 1. “Adopt a new Strategic Concept for NATO that is clear about its support for shared democratic values and committed to enhancing NATO’s capacity to strengthen democratic institutions within NATO member, partner, and aspirant countries.” 2. “Use the voice and vote of the United States to establish a Center for Democratic Resilience within NATO headquarters.” As stated: "We should be strengthening the alliance, not reimagining it as a tool to interfere in one another’s domestic politics." Exactly. While most Americans support defending our allies, I would image that majorities oppose repurposing NATO into another "supra-national" overlord like the EU.