[tomder55]

Unfortunately we are told the party line even worse than during the Vietnam war days.Ask yourself this ;when was the last time there was a major war that the compliant press passed on reporting from the front lines with daily coverage ? Do you ever see an independent report of what is happening in Ukraine without digging deep into alternate media sites ?

We are told that the Ukraine army will launch a major offensive once the ground dries up sufficiently to move all that armor that we are giving them. (a tank here ;a missile there and a drone or 2 )

In an interview JFK Jr . (the Dem candidate in the non-primary season) speaks as close to the reality of the war as I understand it .

DAVID SACKS, ALL-IN PODCAST: From your standpoint, how did we end up in this proxy war with Russia?

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I supported the humanitarian aid to the Ukraine, which is what we were told initially was the mission, although I was suspicious of it. My son, as I've mentioned, actually went over. He left law school, did not tell us he was going, and went over and joined the [Ukrainian] Foreign Legion and fought in the Kharkiv offensive with a special forces group. He served as a machine gunner, he was in engagements with the Russians. But he feels the same way as I do, this is no longer a humanitarian mission, and all the decisions the United States has made since the start have been about prolonging the war, about maximizing the violence of the war, and being absolutely intransigent against the many opportunities to actually settle the war.

My understanding of the war is that Zelensky is pushing this war as hard as he can, but that the neocons in the White House want this war, they want regime change with the Russians. They want to exhaust the Russian army, which is what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in 2022. Our objective is to exhaust and degrade Russian forces so they can not fight anywhere else in the world.

And President Biden acknowledged that one of his objectives in the war is regime change in Russia, removing Vladimir Putin.

Well, if those are the objective, that is the opposite of a humanitarian mission. That is a mission to maximize casualties and prolong the war. it is essentially a war of attrition, and that is what we're seeing. And the brunt of this is being paid by the flower of Ukrainian youth. There have been over 300,000, this is something that the U.S. government and Ukrainian government have worked hard to hide, the number of casualties, which have been catastrophic.

This is the most violent conflict since World War Two probably anywhere in the world, and the casualties are enormous. Over 300,000 Ukrainian dead.

The Russians are killing Ukrainians, depending on who you believe, at a ratio of five-to-one, to eight-to-one. It was seven-to-one in the recently leaked whistleblower leaked Pentagon documents.

The Russians cannot lose this war. We are being told they are losing, but they cannot afford to lose this war. This is existential for them. They have been building up their forces. They have a ten-to-one artillery advantage over us, and this is an artillery war. We do not have the artillery to replace what we've lost over there. This is a war that is proceeding on a very cataclysmic trajectory.

The answer to your question about how we got into this war goes back a long way. But I would say the real story starts in 2014, when the U.S. government and the neocons in the White House and elsewhere participated and supported the violent overthrow, a coup-d-etat, against the democratically elected government of the Ukraine and put in a very anti-Russian government. This prompted the Russians, who then believed that the U.S. Navy was now going to be invited into the Black Sea to have a port at Crimea, it prompted the Russians to preemptively invade Crimea.

At the same time, the government that came into the Ukraine began enacting a series of laws that turned the Russian populations of the Donbas region into second class citizens. They illegalized essentially their culture, their language, and they began ultimately killing them. They killed 14,000 of them and it prompted a civil war in the country. And the Russian response was illegal, I have no sympathy toward Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Putin is a gangster and a thug, but his response to the Donbas was not irrational.

SACKS: I guess the question becomes, if you were elected president, would you stop sending armaments to Ukraine?

KENNEDY: I would immediately have a ceasefire. And I would settle the war. I think it can be settled... The best settlement for this war was outlined in the Minsk Agreement in 2014. The Minsk Accords, which all the Europeans agreed upon, was when the Russian people in Donbas voted to leave for Russia, Russia said no, let's develop an agreement that would make Donbas an autonomous region within the Ukraine, which would agree to not put NATO missile systems in Ukraine, agree that Ukraine would not join NATO.

SACKS: If Zelensky says no, he wants to keep fighting, would you stop sending U.S. weapons?

KENNEDY: I would settle this war. The Ukraine can not fight without U.S. support.

SACKS: So at some point, you would tell Zelensky, if I'm reading into what you're saying correctly, settle it or you're out.

KENNEDY: I would settle the war:

CHAMATH PALIHAPITAYA: Do you think we somehow led Zelensky to believe we would allow them into NATO? Meaning, do you think that U.S. foreign policy somehow induced this thing to happen? I want to try to understand the boundaries.

KENNEDY: We have been doing integrative military exercises with the Ukrainian military, so we were actively integrating them into NATO forces. There was no question.

The one thing that Putin said from the outset was a red line.

When my uncle was president, one of the things that he said a couple of things. Number one, the principal job of the president of the United States is to keep the nation out of wars. And he succeeded in doing that during his term in office. He sent 16,000 military advisors to Vietnam who were not authorized to participate in combat. That didn't mean that some of them didn't, but they were not authorized. In fact, that was fewer federal troops than he sent into the University of Mississippi.

And two weeks before he died, he signed a national security ordering all of those troops home by 1965, with the first 1,000 to come home that month, by November. And he died two weeks later.

And then of course, Johnson came in and sent 250,000 troops over there, which is what all of my uncle's military advisors wanted him to do, and he stood up to them.

The anniversary of his speech at American University, which is an extraordinary speech, probably one of the best in American history. Jeffrey Sachs has called it the most important speech in American history. It was a speech to the American people. He is asking them to put themselves into the shoes of the Russians. Understand that the Russians bore the brunt of World War Two. They lost 1 out of every 13 Russians. A third of their country was occupied and leveled to the ground. He said it is as if the entire east coast of the United States to Chicago was put into rubble. And he described this in detail for the American people to say: we're all people, we're all on an ark, and we need to understand each other's motives and not just vilify each other.

And what we're seeing now is this formulaic villainization, this narrative that we saw with Saddam Hussein and with every little war that we want to get into. Where "those guys are pure evil, we're pure good, and we're going to go rescue the damsel in distress."

...

I've been friends with Joe Biden for many, many years. Joe Biden is a go-to-war guy. He was one of the strongest supporters of the Iraq War, he has been supportive of every war that has come along, and I think that is one of the reasons that that portion of the Democratic Party, the very powerful king-pickers, was very happy with him getting into office. He never says no to a war.

I liked a lot of what Trump said about foreign policy, about disentangling us from this knee-jerk reaction of constant wars and the cost that imposes on our country, what it's doing. It's hollowing out our middle class. But then Trump did a lot of things, including walking away from the Intermediate Nuclear Missile Treaty which was another provocation for Russia, because... we're putting these intermediate-range missile systems all around the Russian border in Romania, Poland, and in Ukraine, and those missiles can hit Moscow in a few minutes.... We all signed it and he walked away from it. I think that was another provocation. We should be deescalating these provocations.

This is what George Kennen said after the Soviet Union collapsed. Why do we even have NATO anymore? Why do we have it unless we're going to involve the Russians in it? Why don't we do a Marshall Plan for Russia? We won the war. They are the losers. They admit they're the losers, but they want to join the European community. Let's make that easy for them. Let's not continue to treat them as if they're the enemy because that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that unfortunately is what we did.

E127: Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in conversation with the Besties - YouTube

[tomder55]

All this week we were treated to reports that Ukraine had made significant progress in the battle for the city of Bakhmut . We saw Russian soldiers in chaotic retreat we were told .

So then why today is it being reported that the Wagner group led Russians had taken the entire city and that the only fighting left were mop up operations ? Ukraine disputes that and says they still control pockets of territory in and near the city.

Zelensky's comments on Bakhmut cause confusion amid Russian claims of capture (msn.com)

Zelenski is out of the country soliciting more arms and $$$$ for the war

Quid Pro Joe agreed to have the US train Ukraine pilots in operating F-16s . He previously refused to do so . Given the time frame for training ,the US appears to be committed to the Ukraine rabbit hole for at least another year .

[tomder55]

Along with asking for more aid ;Zalenski met with India PM Narendra Modi and may or may not have had communications with Brazil's illegitimate President (in my opinion) Lula da Silva . The significance of the contacts is that both India and Brazil are conduits to Putin.

Quid announced another $375 million more in aid for Ukraine, which included more ammunition, artillery, and vehicles.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ca-ching

[tomder55]

Quid also cancelled important meetings at Australia and Papua New Guinea(PNG) . He is scurrying back to the US to negotiate the debt ceiling ;something that should've been dealt with before now with lower level WH staffers . The snag has been the WH refusal to negotiate in good faith .Amazingly the Dems are still asking for increases in spending even as we teeter on the brink of default.

This snub of key allied in the Pacific is significant . Both nations were playing up the prestige of the US President's visit . PNG and the US are shoring up security agreements . The US had a strategic set back when China and the Solomon Islands signed a security pact . The US lost over 7,000 troops ,29 ships ,and 615 air craft liberating the island nation(Guadalcanal ) from Japan in WWII .

[tomder55]

So clown show Clueless Joe said he was "hoping Speaker McCarthy is just waiting to negotiate with me,” suggesting that he would invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling if needed.

The Dems are all calling on him to do just that . But there is nothing in the 14th amendment to suggest the Executive has the power to supersede the Article 1 powers of the Legislative branch . For Congressional Dems to even suggest such a thing is more proof that they are more comfortable in a dictatorship they control than in a democratic nation.

Jonathan Turley compares this Dem's death wish of their institution with the Heaven's Gate mass suicide.

Congressional Democrats beg Biden to nullify their existence | The Hill

Clueless wants even more spending as a condition even though there is $60 billion covid bucks still unallocated

Don’t Let Unspent Covid Funds Become Slush Funds - WSJ

The funds should be returned to the Treasury. That would reduce the deficit and restore decision-making authority to Congress. If future projects are truly valuable, lawmakers should fund them.
Cutting the deficit will require hard choices. Recovering unspent Covid funds well after the emergency has ended is an easy choice.

[tomder55]

Back to Bakhmut

Now Ukraine says that they abandoned the city to encircle the city .

Ukraine aims to encircle Bakhmut as Russia says it captures city | Reuters

Where are the reporters on the ground that could verify the conflicting reports of the war? I more often have to search foreign news sources to get a feel of what is really happening . Western reports may be right for all I know. But from the look of news coming out of the G7 meeting I can make educated guesses.

G7 Summit: Talks culminate Sunday with Zelensky making in-person appeal | CNN Politics

What changed Quid's mind about approving F-16's to Ukraine ? He also claims that the US will now assist in the training of Ukraine pilots . The war could be over before they were ever deployed .
During the Korea war Russia shipped MiGs to the NORKs . It was no secret that NORK pilots were not flying them in combat; that Ruskie pilots were engaged in combat against US forces. Now I'm not saying that US pilots would be used . But there are many competent Eastern European NATO pilots available. No one is checking IDs .

Russian Red line 1 crossed.

Russia says F-16s to Ukraine would raise question of NATO involvement | Reuters

NATO has agreed to supply cruise missiles to Ukraine surface to air and air to air . These missiles have a range far exceeding 100 miles .They are capable of hitting targets inside Russia including Moscow.

Red line 2 crossed.

UK-supplied cruise missiles have been used by Ukraine, Wallace confirms | The Independent



Ukraine has made no secret that their offensive has an objective of retaking Crimea. If they enter Crimea Red line 3 will be crossed.

Russia’s last red line: Will the West help Ukraine liberate Crimea? - Atlantic Council

We are looking at potential major escalation. Quid until now refused to entertain crossing red lines. That NATO would do so now tells me that things are not going as well as the heavily censored compliant press would have us believe.

[tomder55]

The left took a momentary pause in it's attacks on Trump to demonize RFK Jr.

He is a threat to your health AND A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY Challenging his vax position is a reasonable debate . To extend that to claim he is a threat to democracy is beyond absurd .

Hiltzik: Robert F. Kennedy and the lies of the anti-vaxxers - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

[tomder55]

If physical fitness was a prerequisite RFK Jr would be a lock


RFK, Jr. at Age 69 Lifting Weights Is a Sight to Behold (rumble.com)