Russia

[dawg80]

MTG and four other "hardliners" are blocking passage of the spending bill demanding $300 million earmarked for Ukraine, part of the Pentagon's proposed budget allotment, be stripped out. McCarthy said he would pull that money out and have it stand alone for a vote separately. I stopped reading the article at this point, as the rest is a bunch of mumble jumble lefty crapola...the article was on Yahoo, a very left-leaning outlet.

Reading through the over 8K comments posted on that article (no, I did not read all the comments ) several folks pointed out some obvious flaws in the "we have spent too much on Ukraine already" line of thinking. First, $300 million is a mere drop in the bucket in defense spending and secondly, we have already spent $113 billion on the Ukraine war, so another paltry $300 million....????

Next, the Pentagon spends (wastes) many $billions and $billions annually on testing weapon systems that are not adopted, and [drum roll please] on stupid stuff like diversity training, climate change studies (really? is that the role of the defense department?), fabulous taxpayer-paid vacations for "higher-ups" and "dignitaries," etc... so please spare me the sudden concern over $300 million.

Finally, how much does it cost every single year maintaining our defense against Russia? I know the answer is $Tens of billions(many times over) so again, the $115 billion spent "defending against" Russia while not risking a single US serviceman's life seems like a reasonable expenditure. No, I can't/won't say that every dollar is justifiable, there probably is a lot of waste as a result of inefficiencies, and some unnecessary expenditures. But that is true in every single government program, so it is ridiculous to pick on this one small aspect of the hugely wasteful federal government budget measured in many $trillions.

Which brings me to this, what exactly is some folks' problem with helping Ukraine stand up to an international bully? When I try to reason how anyone can be against the aid/support I am left with, well, only globalist commies benefit from Putin taking Ukraine, then Poland, then the rest of eastern Europe. The Chicoms are supporting Putin. North Korea is supporting Putin. Cuba is supporting Putin. When someone stands against Ukraine maintaining their sovereignty, they align with those evil global commie regimes.

[dawg80]

Newly created Russian reserve unit, the 25th Army, a bunch of poorly trained, inexperienced, and poorly led conscripts walked/rode straight into a trap east of Bakhmut, in the northern half of the theater. The Ukrans have advised the 25th to surrender to avoid being slaughtered. There are 15,000 soldiers from the 25th that are in this predicament. One spokesman for the Ukrainian commander, north region/Bakhmut front, said the Russians have been given 12 hours to surrender or the artillery barrage will commence. This report is 4 hours old as of 1:00 CDT.

Ya know, there are those who pretend to care about the poor ole Ukranians who have died gallantly defending their home and standing up to an evil, criminal regime, but say very little to nothing about the conscripted Russians who are sent to certain doom, poorly trained and equipped. The life expectancy of a Russian conscript is 4 months. And that includes a month+ of "training," meaning they survive only 90 days, on average, once they are deployed. Oh, but one fellow expects me to believe that less than 100K Russians are KIA in the 19-month war, LOL!

[dawg80]

Charter flight carrying Wagner Group soldiers crashed in Mali. No details yet on numbers of killed/injured and a cause.

Armenians storm the Russian Consulate in capital blaming Putin for the loss of the Karabakh province to Azerbaijan. Poor old Putin, losing friends and allies all over the place, er, save for his buddies in China, North Korea, and Cuba. And, of course, one of our posters here...

[dawg80]

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergie Lavrov speaking at the UN acknowledged Ukraine's legal possession of Crimea. Citing the 1990 agreement when the USSR dissolved Lavrov stated they know that Crimea legally belongs to Ukraine. But...!!

Always a "but" with the Russkies. Lavrov stated Moscow has concerns over Ukraine's future alliance(s), namely NATO, and expects concessions. Really? The only concessions the world should afford the criminal thugs of Putin's inner circle is allowing them to choose the method of execution: firing squad or the gallows.

This is another indication of the failing Putin regime. They know they are losing the war, they know they invaded a sovereign nation in 2014 and again in 2022, and now that their criminal "empire" is crumbling they are seeking a soft landing. Bullshit! CRUSH 'em without mercy or remorse! And then round up and prosecute all those POS propagandists on YouTube and elsewhere who have served the evil Putin regime spreading lies in an attempt to undermine the righteous Ukrainians who have valiantly stood up to a bully.

That's not to say there aren't still some delusional idiots out there. Volodin, Speaker of the Lower Chamber of the Russian parliament, called on Ukraine to surrender or "cease to exist." Nice try Volodin, but the world knows better and ain't buying your BS.

[dawg80]

Just when you think the Putin propagandists can't get any stupider...they do. Some moron by the name of Mortar, a host of a Putin Network TV show, went on a rant about the attacks on Sevastopol and other UKRAINIAN cities (because they are in fact, Ukrainian cities) yelling "If they want war, we'll give them one!" Guess he's been living in a cave the past 19-months and missed the blatant Putin invasion i.e. a "war" and been sleeping through all the gallant counter-offensives of the Ukrans. His viewers must be as informed as the audience of "The View."

Putin ordered, actually threatened, a top-ranking general and gave him one month to reverse the gains of the Ukrans during their offensive. That explains the recent human-wave attacks and the tens of thousands of casualties, and all the losses of tanks, especially in the Bakhmut theater. A leak from an intercepted telegram revealed the order. Why is Russia still using telegrams...oh, that's right, they just disbanded their Pony Express and all their carrier pigeons got smart and defected to Ukraine.

In a somewhat related story, kind of, tribes in Mali (West Africa) turned on the Wagner group and attacked a HQ and base. This less than 2 days after a charter flight carrying Wagner members went down in Mali. Still no confirmed information about the plane crash, but it does look suspicious.

[dawg80]

A 60 Minutes report on tax dollars in Ukraine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkGJw5wUZI0