As is sometimes the case in American politics, a bill that many people are likely not paying a great deal of attention to is likely to have enormous impact on the nation’s future. That $110.5 billion national security supplemental package was designed to provide additional funding for Ukraine in its war to fight off Russia’s invasion; security assistance to Israel, primarily for missile defense systems; humanitarian assistance to citizens in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine, and elsewhere; funding to replenish U.S. weapon stockpiles; assistance to regional partners in the Indo-Pacific; investments in efforts to stop illegal fentanyl from coming into the U.S. and to dismantle international drug cartels; and investment in U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enhance border security and speed up migrant processing.
Corruption at every turn, here in America, and in Russia. Dems and Biden-Harris must call out the R’s for continuously putting our country at risk. The R’s have absolutely no policies other than to disrupt fundings for Israel and Ukraine and to give their undying support for a wannabe dictator, Donald J Trump. According to Rachel Maddow, on her show tonight, Congress has passed a total of 22 bills for the entire year. It goes to show that the R’s cannot form a thought or run a country.
Jack Smith, today, filed a petition to bypass the appellate court and go straight to SCOTUS for a ruling about Trump and his definition “immunity”. Smith is tired of the many delays Trump’s legal team has been using to bide for more time. I want to experience elation if SC rules against The Don.
Remember Jack Teixeira, the 21 year old Discord leaker of Pentagon secrets? WaPo reported how those papers got leaked, to whom, and how our government officials ignored what he was doing. I am gifting the article here: https://wapo.st/3teYBxm
Zelenskyy is in the US and will speak to the Senate tomorrow. It is essential that he gets the funding needed because, like Heather pointed out, if not, then Putin wins. If that ends up being the case, every single Democrat who we have elected, should be accusing the R’s of being Russia operatives. They must say it loud, clearly, and repetitively!
A year and a half ago, the worst Supreme Court in my lifetime issued one of the single worst decisions in our Court's history. For the first time ever, the U.S. Supreme Court retracted a right that it had previously granted, a conditional right to bodily autonomy for women to decide their own reproductive choices, and a privacy based right that was relied upon for generations of American women for fifty years. I have long been troubled by the very concept of abortion, finding it as the recently departed first female Justice Sandra Day O'Connor did, most troubling.
Yet far more troubling is the very idea that a right of such piercing intimacy and incisive importance could be washed away after half a century, based not upon newly discovered scientific evidence, or new facts, or even newly refashioned argument, but simply due to the fact that the Court's membership had changed.
Stare decisis be damned, privacy be scoffed at, women be patronized, and dignity be sent to the increasingly burgeoning servants' quarters, while Messrs. Alito and Thomas decide what's right for All.
Harry Blackmun's months of monastic scholarship in the bowels of the Mayo Clinic Library which led to the agonizing illumination of Roe v. Wade, meet Sam Alito, fresh from the gilded salmon boat with Paul Singer, and blithely quoting out of context medieval text proffered for him by Leonard Leo.
Ah but the States, please you liberals and secularists, the States will decide.
The State of Tejas has certainly decided, hasn't it?
Pardon my mixing metaphors from Heather's Letter of tonight, but I'd much rather have heard that Alexi Navalny was freed and that Ken Paxton was lost somewhere in the dank, never ending labyrinth of the Texas prison system.
They all—whether individuals like Putin, Orban, Tr*mp, or Netanyahu, or nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or groups like Hamas, the Taliban, the KKK, or The OathKeepers—share the same zeal and obsession for denying OTHERS (women, people of color, the LGBTQ, immigrants or those who hold different religious beliefs, or none at all) every one of the freedoms, they want to reserve exclusively for themselves.
There is NO hypocrisy—only a deep-rooted belief and value system where a wealthy, well-connected few distract (through endless culture wars and faux-aggrieved victimhood), and divide (by stoking fear and hatred), to ensure they don’t ever have to pay what they owe, or be held accountable, all so they can hold onto their power through minority rule, and the denial of basic democratic norms and everyone else’s fundamental human rights.
This is fascism, no matter its label (MAGA or Nazi), country of origin, or dear leader...and this is the enemy we must ALL stand against, each and everyone of us who is on the side of justice, equality, and freedoms...
The Russian news celebration of the Republican cowardice being a victory for Putin should be turned into billboards in the districts of EVERY one of the corrupt traitorous GQP slime that are creating this latest outrage.
It is not governance they, the GOP, seek or exhibit. It is the power a bully seeks and exercises out of fear of being found to be truly outdated and obsolete. They are acting out fear, and that makes them dangerous because they will do anything to keep things as they once were no matter how wrongheaded they once were. It is up to those who have faith in a free and open society to take the lead and wake the nation up to the realities of what’s at stake. So far, they are failing.
There is absolutely no good news in Heather’s letter….tonight…..really just about every fiscal ‘delay’ helps the Russians, weakens the US and jeopardizes the Ukrainians AND NATO. OR weakens basic health care protections in severely challenged pregnancies OR challenges some other basic tenet of democracy …ending on the note of Nalvany’s disappearance from Russian records…and quite possibly from life itself.
I am a former Foreign Service Officer who had experienced the importance of NATO during the Cold War and fervently believe that the Biden-organized coalition defending the sovereignty of Ukraine against Putin’s brutal Greater Russia invasion is a post-Cold War imperative.
In October President Biden had submitted a legislative request for a budgetary supplemental for $110 billion, of which a majority was for imperative military assistance for Ukraine. At the time, I considered it unimaginable that, more than two months later, this $60 billion would be left in legislative limbo.
The Trumpists are threatening to hold this $60 billion hostage to a cockamamie insistence that a not-yet-on-the-drawing-board massive immigration program be enacted. I find this a despicable hostage/blackmail stance that brings to mind then-President Trump’s ‘will-he-or-won’t he’ pull the United States out of NATO. [Putin must be chuckling.]
I do not watch television news. I am gobsmacked that, in the media—New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, The Guardian—in recent days I find NOTHING about the prospective legislative betrayal of our commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty or that Congress is on the cusp of a long Christmas vacation.
Instead, recent headlines have focused on how three female college presidents mishandled ‘genocide’ in a rambunctious congressional hearing.
Even Mitch the Switch McConnell has pivoted from his previous 100% support for Ukraine. While President Biden is bringing President Zelensky to the White House, Trumpists are hosting Vicktor Orban at a conference where his anti-Ukraine/pro-Putin commitments will be highlighted.
As a kid, I recall how isolationists were appalled at the thought that Franklin Roosevelt would provide imperative military assistance to Winston Churchill’s England, that was standing alone against Hitler-occupied Western Europe. England survived, was the launch pad for D-Day, and Hitler was defeated.
I have a similar anger at those blackmailing Trumpublican legislators. STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL YOU AUTHORIZE $60 BILLION TO PERMIT UKRAINE TO MAINTAIN ITS SOVEREIGNTY.
Thank you Heather. It is remarkable that all Americans, regardless of political party affinity, aren't furious that the leading GOP Presidential candidate has given, and continues to give aid and comfort to Putin, an adversarial enemy of the US. And the GOP publicly embraces Orban -an enemy of democracy. This has been ongoing since Trump directed convicted criminal Flynn to undermine sanctions against Russia for their illegal annexation of Crimea, and their documented interference in the US elections.
I do hope the women of Texas -as well as fathers of daughters, grandfathers of granddaughters, and everyone else understands what has unfolded in Texas. In the 21st century, forcing someone to travel out of a legal jurisdiction to obtain a necessary medical procedure evokes historically ignorant and egregious decisions predicated upon when a society prioritized religious beliefs over scientific facts and evidence. If Texas (or any other State of the Union) wishes to return to the 6th century -they should do so, and relinquish any scientific advancement since the end of the dark ages in the 15th century. I'm certain the 'Justice' Alito can help them resurrect the witch trials which he enjoys referencing in his religious proclamations masquerading as Supreme Court decisions.
“ Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in “agony” and that it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.” One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!” Another: “Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.”
It appears to me that the “domestic terrorists” aligned with Putin (AKA the MAGA GOP) is getting stronger not weaker. Recent polls show Trump way ahead in Iowa (gaining something like 8 percentage points in the last month).
I know it’s not possible for President Biden to declare we are at war with this internal threat, but I believe he needs to explain even more clearly than he has to date just what kind of sociopolitical dynamics we’ve got going on here in America. He says this is a fight for “the soul of America,” but that phrase is way too church sermon like for me. When terrorists take a country hostage, stronger language is required!
Note that the last news reported is that Navaley is missing. If Trump is elected, we can expect to see many Americans go “missing” and people dying because politicians, not doctors, decide your medical care for crazy and cruel ideological nonsense. Texas’s Attorney General is worse than Dr. Mengeles.
"Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in 'agony' and that it was 'difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.' One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!' Another: 'Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.'" SHAME ON THE REPUBLICANS!! How is this not a betrayal of our nation? And what ought the punishment to be for this despicable behavior?
As with so many LFAAs, tonight’s is packed with reasons why voters should vote for Democrats. The problem, in my view, largely rests with leadership’s seeming reluctance, baffling from my vantage point, to travel the country, seeking to show, especially those who doubt that Democrats care about their interests and concerns, precisely how the Republican far-right blueprint runs counter to virtually every aspect of the public interest.
The GOP now stands for the Government of Putin. That has become fact.
Corruption at every turn, here in America, and in Russia. Dems and Biden-Harris must call out the R’s for continuously putting our country at risk. The R’s have absolutely no policies other than to disrupt fundings for Israel and Ukraine and to give their undying support for a wannabe dictator, Donald J Trump. According to Rachel Maddow, on her show tonight, Congress has passed a total of 22 bills for the entire year. It goes to show that the R’s cannot form a thought or run a country.
Jack Smith, today, filed a petition to bypass the appellate court and go straight to SCOTUS for a ruling about Trump and his definition “immunity”. Smith is tired of the many delays Trump’s legal team has been using to bide for more time. I want to experience elation if SC rules against The Don.
Remember Jack Teixeira, the 21 year old Discord leaker of Pentagon secrets? WaPo reported how those papers got leaked, to whom, and how our government officials ignored what he was doing. I am gifting the article here: https://wapo.st/3teYBxm
Zelenskyy is in the US and will speak to the Senate tomorrow. It is essential that he gets the funding needed because, like Heather pointed out, if not, then Putin wins. If that ends up being the case, every single Democrat who we have elected, should be accusing the R’s of being Russia operatives. They must say it loud, clearly, and repetitively!
A year and a half ago, the worst Supreme Court in my lifetime issued one of the single worst decisions in our Court's history. For the first time ever, the U.S. Supreme Court retracted a right that it had previously granted, a conditional right to bodily autonomy for women to decide their own reproductive choices, and a privacy based right that was relied upon for generations of American women for fifty years. I have long been troubled by the very concept of abortion, finding it as the recently departed first female Justice Sandra Day O'Connor did, most troubling.
Yet far more troubling is the very idea that a right of such piercing intimacy and incisive importance could be washed away after half a century, based not upon newly discovered scientific evidence, or new facts, or even newly refashioned argument, but simply due to the fact that the Court's membership had changed.
Stare decisis be damned, privacy be scoffed at, women be patronized, and dignity be sent to the increasingly burgeoning servants' quarters, while Messrs. Alito and Thomas decide what's right for All.
Harry Blackmun's months of monastic scholarship in the bowels of the Mayo Clinic Library which led to the agonizing illumination of Roe v. Wade, meet Sam Alito, fresh from the gilded salmon boat with Paul Singer, and blithely quoting out of context medieval text proffered for him by Leonard Leo.
Ah but the States, please you liberals and secularists, the States will decide.
The State of Tejas has certainly decided, hasn't it?
Pardon my mixing metaphors from Heather's Letter of tonight, but I'd much rather have heard that Alexi Navalny was freed and that Ken Paxton was lost somewhere in the dank, never ending labyrinth of the Texas prison system.
They all—whether individuals like Putin, Orban, Tr*mp, or Netanyahu, or nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or groups like Hamas, the Taliban, the KKK, or The OathKeepers—share the same zeal and obsession for denying OTHERS (women, people of color, the LGBTQ, immigrants or those who hold different religious beliefs, or none at all) every one of the freedoms, they want to reserve exclusively for themselves.
There is NO hypocrisy—only a deep-rooted belief and value system where a wealthy, well-connected few distract (through endless culture wars and faux-aggrieved victimhood), and divide (by stoking fear and hatred), to ensure they don’t ever have to pay what they owe, or be held accountable, all so they can hold onto their power through minority rule, and the denial of basic democratic norms and everyone else’s fundamental human rights.
This is fascism, no matter its label (MAGA or Nazi), country of origin, or dear leader...and this is the enemy we must ALL stand against, each and everyone of us who is on the side of justice, equality, and freedoms...
Just when you think the GOP can't sink any lower, they do!
The Russian news celebration of the Republican cowardice being a victory for Putin should be turned into billboards in the districts of EVERY one of the corrupt traitorous GQP slime that are creating this latest outrage.
It is not governance they, the GOP, seek or exhibit. It is the power a bully seeks and exercises out of fear of being found to be truly outdated and obsolete. They are acting out fear, and that makes them dangerous because they will do anything to keep things as they once were no matter how wrongheaded they once were. It is up to those who have faith in a free and open society to take the lead and wake the nation up to the realities of what’s at stake. So far, they are failing.
There is absolutely no good news in Heather’s letter….tonight…..really just about every fiscal ‘delay’ helps the Russians, weakens the US and jeopardizes the Ukrainians AND NATO. OR weakens basic health care protections in severely challenged pregnancies OR challenges some other basic tenet of democracy …ending on the note of Nalvany’s disappearance from Russian records…and quite possibly from life itself.
I am a former Foreign Service Officer who had experienced the importance of NATO during the Cold War and fervently believe that the Biden-organized coalition defending the sovereignty of Ukraine against Putin’s brutal Greater Russia invasion is a post-Cold War imperative.
In October President Biden had submitted a legislative request for a budgetary supplemental for $110 billion, of which a majority was for imperative military assistance for Ukraine. At the time, I considered it unimaginable that, more than two months later, this $60 billion would be left in legislative limbo.
The Trumpists are threatening to hold this $60 billion hostage to a cockamamie insistence that a not-yet-on-the-drawing-board massive immigration program be enacted. I find this a despicable hostage/blackmail stance that brings to mind then-President Trump’s ‘will-he-or-won’t he’ pull the United States out of NATO. [Putin must be chuckling.]
I do not watch television news. I am gobsmacked that, in the media—New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, The Guardian—in recent days I find NOTHING about the prospective legislative betrayal of our commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty or that Congress is on the cusp of a long Christmas vacation.
Instead, recent headlines have focused on how three female college presidents mishandled ‘genocide’ in a rambunctious congressional hearing.
Even Mitch the Switch McConnell has pivoted from his previous 100% support for Ukraine. While President Biden is bringing President Zelensky to the White House, Trumpists are hosting Vicktor Orban at a conference where his anti-Ukraine/pro-Putin commitments will be highlighted.
As a kid, I recall how isolationists were appalled at the thought that Franklin Roosevelt would provide imperative military assistance to Winston Churchill’s England, that was standing alone against Hitler-occupied Western Europe. England survived, was the launch pad for D-Day, and Hitler was defeated.
I have a similar anger at those blackmailing Trumpublican legislators. STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL YOU AUTHORIZE $60 BILLION TO PERMIT UKRAINE TO MAINTAIN ITS SOVEREIGNTY.
ANYTHING LESS I CONSIDER TREASONOUS!
Thank you Heather. It is remarkable that all Americans, regardless of political party affinity, aren't furious that the leading GOP Presidential candidate has given, and continues to give aid and comfort to Putin, an adversarial enemy of the US. And the GOP publicly embraces Orban -an enemy of democracy. This has been ongoing since Trump directed convicted criminal Flynn to undermine sanctions against Russia for their illegal annexation of Crimea, and their documented interference in the US elections.
I do hope the women of Texas -as well as fathers of daughters, grandfathers of granddaughters, and everyone else understands what has unfolded in Texas. In the 21st century, forcing someone to travel out of a legal jurisdiction to obtain a necessary medical procedure evokes historically ignorant and egregious decisions predicated upon when a society prioritized religious beliefs over scientific facts and evidence. If Texas (or any other State of the Union) wishes to return to the 6th century -they should do so, and relinquish any scientific advancement since the end of the dark ages in the 15th century. I'm certain the 'Justice' Alito can help them resurrect the witch trials which he enjoys referencing in his religious proclamations masquerading as Supreme Court decisions.
“ Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in “agony” and that it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.” One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!” Another: “Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.”
It appears to me that the “domestic terrorists” aligned with Putin (AKA the MAGA GOP) is getting stronger not weaker. Recent polls show Trump way ahead in Iowa (gaining something like 8 percentage points in the last month).
I know it’s not possible for President Biden to declare we are at war with this internal threat, but I believe he needs to explain even more clearly than he has to date just what kind of sociopolitical dynamics we’ve got going on here in America. He says this is a fight for “the soul of America,” but that phrase is way too church sermon like for me. When terrorists take a country hostage, stronger language is required!
This is one of the scariest letters I've read. I shouldn't read it before I go to bed.
Note that the last news reported is that Navaley is missing. If Trump is elected, we can expect to see many Americans go “missing” and people dying because politicians, not doctors, decide your medical care for crazy and cruel ideological nonsense. Texas’s Attorney General is worse than Dr. Mengeles.
"Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in 'agony' and that it was 'difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.' One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!' Another: 'Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.'" SHAME ON THE REPUBLICANS!! How is this not a betrayal of our nation? And what ought the punishment to be for this despicable behavior?
As with so many LFAAs, tonight’s is packed with reasons why voters should vote for Democrats. The problem, in my view, largely rests with leadership’s seeming reluctance, baffling from my vantage point, to travel the country, seeking to show, especially those who doubt that Democrats care about their interests and concerns, precisely how the Republican far-right blueprint runs counter to virtually every aspect of the public interest.