You Can’t Sit This One Out.

People tell me “Stick to trans stuff.” and I tell them politics is trans stuff. Our lives depend upon it.

You can’t go by what they say, you have to go by what they do and who are their friends.

Stalled US aid for Ukraine underscores GOP’s shift away from confronting Russia
AP News
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI
February 19, 2024

At about 2 a.m. last Tuesday, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin stood on the Senate floor and explained why he opposed sending more aid to help Ukraine fend off the invasion launched in 2022 by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I don’t like this reality,” Johnson said. “Vladimir Putin is an evil war criminal.” But he quickly added: “Vladimir Putin will not lose this war.”

That argument — that the Russian president cannot be stopped so there’s no point in using American taxpayer dollars against him — marks a new stage in the Republican Party’s growing acceptance of Russian expansionism in the age of Donald Trump.

The GOP has been softening its stance on Russia ever since Trump won the 2016 election following Russian hacking of his Democratic opponents. There are several reasons for the shift. Among them, Putin is holding himself out as an international champion of conservative Christian values and the GOP is growing increasingly skeptical of overseas entanglements. Then there’s Trump’s personal embrace of the Russian leader.

So the Republicans want Putin to win, what nation is next? Poland? Moldavia? Finland? Sweden?

As Putin Threatens, Despair and Hedging in Europe
There is a dawning recognition that the continent urgently needs to step up its own defense, especially as the U.S. wavers, but the commitments still are not coming.
The New York Times
By David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger
February 18, 2024

As the leaders of the West gathered in Munich over the past three days, President Vladimir V. Putin had a message for them: Nothing they’ve done so far — sanctions, condemnation, attempted containment — would alter his intentions to disrupt the current world order.

Russia made its first major gain in Ukraine in nearly a year, taking the ruined city of Avdiivka, at huge human cost to both sides, the bodies littered along the roads a warning, perhaps, of a new course in the two-year-old war. Aleksei A. Navalny’s suspicious death in a remote Arctic prison made ever clearer that Mr. Putin will tolerate no dissent as elections approach.

And the American discovery, disclosed in recent days, that Mr. Putin may be planning to place a nuclear weapon in space — a bomb designed to wipe out the connective tissue of global communications if Mr. Putin is pushed too far — was a potent reminder of his capacity to strike back at his adversaries with the asymmetric weapons that remain a key source of his power.

In Munich, the mood was both anxious and unmoored, as leaders faced confrontations they had not anticipated. Warnings about Mr. Putin’s possible next moves were mixed with Europe’s growing worries that it could soon be abandoned by the United States, the one power that has been at the core of its defense strategy for 75 years.

The company that they keep also is a “tell.”

‘I like that he said that’: Trump revels in praise from Putin
The Russian leader recently praised Trump for repeatedly promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.
Politico
By KELLY GARRITY
September 17, 2023

Former President Donald Trump’s plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine has a telling supporter: Russian President Vladimir Putin. And Trump is welcoming the praise.

“President Putin said, quote, ‘We surely hear that Mr. Trump says he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis. We cannot help but feel happy about it.’ What do you make of that? Do you welcome this support?” NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump during an interview on “Meet the Press.”

“Well, I like that he said that. Because that means what I’m saying is right,” Trump said in the interview that aired Sunday.

The current GOP front runner has said he would end the war in Ukraine in one day — a promise that has sparked concern from Ukrainian leaders, who fear that Trump’s simplistic plan would involve the U.S. attempting to cede Ukrainian land to Russia.

*****

Trump praises Hungary’s ‘Viktor Orbán’ as great ‘leader of Turkey’
Former US president confuses his illiberal leaders.
Politico
BY SEB STARCEVIC
October 24, 2023

Former U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to confuse the leaders of Turkey and Hungary in a campaign speech in New Hampshire on Monday.

“There’s a man, Viktor Orbán, did anyone ever hear of him?” Trump said, referring to the Hungarian prime minister.

“He’s probably, like, one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world. He’s the leader of Turkey,” the former president said. Turkey’s president is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Trump has previously praised Orbán, who opposes migration and LGBTQ rights, and refers to his governing style as an “illiberal democracy.” Trump hosted him at the White House in 2019.

AP News reported the Viktor Orbán is facing political turmoil with the pardon of sex-abuse case pardon. Meanwhile ABC News wrote,

The former president, again, praised authoritarian leaders including Hungary's Viktor Orban, China's Xi Jinping and North Korea's Kim Jong Un -- and called President Joe Biden a "threat to democracy," reversing a frequent attack of Biden on him.

Trump went on to quote Russia's president when calling the criminal cases pending against him "politically motivated." Prosecutors have rejected that accusation and defended their work.

Politics this year will mean our freedom or criminalization of us. We cannot sit this one out is you do you are giving your consent to the imprisonment of us.