Trump on Ukraine

Hot Air ^ | February 2, 2024 | David Strom

[Timber Rattler]

Well, this was a bit unexpected, given what Trump supporters have been implying about what Trump’s Ukraine policy would be.

Far from cutting off funds or ending the war (the latter of which Trump has indeed promised), Trump, at a rally, told the audience that the US has been bearing a disproportionate portion of the cost and he would pressure European governments to increase their own contributions to the same level as the United States.

Given that this is Trump, I wouldn’t call this an iron-clad-take-it-to-the-bank promise to keep pouring billions of dollars into Ukraine’s war coffers, but it does suggest that the view that both Trump supporters and his opponents have of him are grossly oversimplified.

The Left keeps talking as if Trump would have handed Ukraine over to Putin, even though Putin invaded Ukraine twice now–under Obama and then Biden. He left the country alone when Trump was president, and Trump was the only president who sent Ukraine arms until the 2nd war began.

Trump’s supporters tend to oppose funding Ukraine, but Trump here suggests that his problem with funding Ukraine is that only the US is doing so, with small token contributions from European states. As with NATO–an organization he criticized but kept funding–he talks very tough to the Europeans but shows no signs of abandoning American commitments.

[BroJoeK]

Robert DeLong: "The Nation: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine"

Your article is from February 2019 and is totally out of date.

1. In May 2019 Ukrainians elected a Jewish president and prime minister.

2. The Neo-Nazi Andriy Biletsky's party did not qualify for seats in parliament, so Biletsky was removed.

3. Your article claims that Biletsky is the commander of the Azov Batallion, but that command ended in 2014.
   Since taking office in 2019 Ukraine's Pres. Zelenskyy has appointed three new commanders of the Azov Batallion, including its current commander Denys Prokopenko, with no known Nazi ties.

4. Your article itself admits there are fewer Neo-Nazis in Ukraine than in, for example, France, but still maintains Ukraine's Neo-Nazis are somehow "special".
   They're not, they're less than special and arguably no more acceptable than in, for example, Russia.

5. Whatever small influence Neo-Nazis may have had before 2019 has undoubtedly been eliminated by Ukraine's current Jewish led government.

This leaves the historical problem that some Ukrainian patriots allied with Nazi Germans during World War II, as reported in your link here:

"Hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists march in honor of Nazi collaborator"

  There are several problems with the argument about Ukrainian Nazi collaborators:

1. First and foremost, so was Old Uncle Joe Stalin a Nazi collaborator -- when it suited Stalin's purposes, he was more than tickled to collaborate with Adolf Hitler in the destruction of Poland and the murder of Poland's nationalists.

2. Wars between Ukraine and Russia go back to the 17th century and the current, by my count, is the 7th, plus at least half a dozen insurgencies of Ukrainians under Russian rule.
   So, Ukrainians have always looked for allies to help them defeat Russian oppression.

3. This list of famous Ukrainians includes Stephen Bandera about whom polls showed very mixed Ukrainian feelings before Vlad the Invader's "Special Military Operations", but since then most Ukrainians have come to appreciate Bandera's Ukrainian nationalism and anti-Soviet patriotism.

4. It's significant, imho, that Bandera was murdered in 1959 by a Soviet KGB agent under orders from a Ukrainian named Nikita Khruschev (USSR's premier 1953-1964).
   Today we still find an Old Soviet KGB LtCol trying to murder as many Ukrainian patriots as he can.

The bottom line is that no country, including Nazi Germany, was ever more brutal against Ukrainians than the Russians and Soviets under Old Uncle Joe Stalin.
That Ukrainians would even today find their heroes among those who fought against Russian oppression, is both unsurprising and understandable.

1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact to invade Poland and start WWII:

[Robert DeLong]

You really are an idiot, that was to refute your claim that the notion that Nazi’s existed in Ukraine was false.

[BroJoeK]

Robert DeLong: "The Democrats & RINO Republicans (The Uni-Party) support the support Ukraine against Russia because both factions of the Uni-Party are raking in vast amounts of wealth from the military-industrial complex, just like they did from the big pharma during the Covid "plandemic"."

Here's how you can understand those words are pure nonsense -- would you say the same thing about the Second World War?
And yet in WWII, US military spending was 15 times more than today, compared to our GDP, so then there were, relatively, 15 times more people amassing 15 times more wealth than today, and yet, would you ever say we fought World War II just to make those people wealthy?

If that's what you claim WWII was all about, then I'm saying you are one sick puppy whose poor brain has been fried by nonsense that is intended to destroy what's best about the USA.

You really do need to rethink it all, FRiend.

Robert DeLong: "Ukraine is also known to be an very effective cog in the laundering money industry that is how criminals clean their money making it seem legally attained."

That is pure 100% fact-free nonsense concocted by denizens of the deep Kremlin Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda to fry the brains of otherwise patriotic Americans.
And in your case, it seems to have worked beautifully.

You need to rethink that.

Robert DeLong: "Perhaps you can tell me why are we giving money to the Houthis, who are attacking our assets in the Red Sea?
Why are we giving money to Iran?
Why are we trading with China?
These are all actors who have declared their disdain for this nation."

I can't & won't defend our Democrats because I'm certain they are also insane in many respects.
In the cases of Iran and Houthis, they clearly want to make friends of Donald Trump's enemies, because that's what Democrats do.
Same with CCP China.

And we should remember that Trump himself did not ban all trade with CCP China, though he did add significant tariffs and may well add even more in 2025.

[BroJoeK]

Robert DeLong: "You really are an idiot, that was to refute your claim that the notion that Nazi’s existed in Ukraine was false."

A few Neo-Nazis exist in pretty much every country, including the USA -- so does that mean we should allow Vlad the Invader to launch a Special Military Operation against the USA so he can root-out any Neo-Nazis he finds here?

That's just as insane as Vlad's invasions of Ukraine under the banner of fighting against Ukrainian Neo-Nazis.

Seriously, FRiend, your brain has been fried by some nonsense that you need to rethink.

[Robert DeLong]

It is far more than the few you want to claim it is. Where do you get your information from?

[Robert DeLong]

Thus is total BS, you cannot equate what happened 80 years ago to what is happening today. The country 80 years ago resembles nothing close to what this country is today.

First, we were not 34 trillion dollars in debt & spending as it debt had zero consequences. The fact that you even went there with this argument, shows exactly out ignorant you actually are.

[MalPearce]

I don’t disagree with you in the sense that US involvement *where nobody asks for it* tends to be an unmitigated disaster.

Y’all did the right thing in the Falklands War. As friendly as UK and America were, America stayed out of it. Ditto WW2, where America waited till the war came to its shores.

Then again, you did the right thing in the Iraq-Kuwait war. According to the letter of the UN Charter, Kuwait was unlawfully invaded, it had the right to call for help, and the USA did the right thing by responding to that call.

Ditto Ukraine. It wasn’t just the UN Charter; the Budapest Memorandum was signed precisely to ensure that if some mutt did invade Ukraine, the signatories to that agreement would assist it.

What a lot of people don’t know is, mere days before Yanukovych sold his soul to Putin in December 2013, his own government signed a Budapest Memorandum equivalent with...

China.

Why are there no Russian or Belorussian troops (officially) on the ground in Ukraine?

Because no matter how their loyalties lie as regards Russia versus the West, they both have given Ukraine their friendship and their security assurances. Crafty old Lukashenko talks the talk with Putin and peddles the vranyo like the best of ‘em, but when Russia wants Belarus to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, he’s always got an excuse.

[BroJoeK]

Robert DeLong: "It is far more than the few you want to claim it is.
Where do you get your information from?"

Seriously??
Your alleged "far more" is only even conceivable if you define the word "Nazi" to mean "Ukrainian nationalist patriot", but that's a 100% insane definition.
By that definition you'd magically turn every American patriot into a "Nazi" and that's just crazy-talk.

By any reasonable definition, a nation like Ukraine which elects and now supports a Jewish president by something like 85% approval are not "Nazis" and any attempts to turn them into Nazis are strictly nonsense from the information sewer pipes of the Kremlin's Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda.

Your own links do not claim significant numbers of Ukrainian Nazis:

Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine

"The DC establishment’s standard defense of Kiev is to point out that Ukraine’s far right has a smaller percentage of seats in the parliament than their counterparts in places like France.
That’s a spurious argument: What Ukraine’s far right lacks in polls numbers, it makes up for with things Marine Le Pen could only dream of—paramilitary units and free rein on the streets."

Everything alleged in your own article goes back into the 2014 to 2018 time period and before.

"Hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists march in honor of Nazi collaborator"

"Bandera’s supporters claim that they sided with the Nazis against the Soviet army in the belief that Adolf Hitler would grant independence to Ukraine."

So first of all, by your own article, the number is hundreds, not millions or even thousands.
Hundreds is 100% insignificant.

Second, as I explained in detail in #101 above, Bandera was far from the only "Nazi collaborator", so was Old Uncle Joe Stalin, when that suited his purposes.
Does that make Stalin forever a Nazi?
No, the whole "Nazi" idea is ludicrous if all it means is patriotic nationalist.

According to this source, the following countries have some number of Neo-Nazi groups and members:

In Europe:
1. Armenia
2. Belgium
3. Bosnia
4. Bulgaria
5. Croatia
6. Czechia
7. Denmark
8. Estonia
9. Finland
10. France
11. Germany
12. Greece
13. Hungary
14. Italy
15. Ireland
16. Netherlands
17. Poland
18. Russia
19. Serbia
20. Slovakia
21. Spain
22. Sweden
23. Switzerland
24. Ukraine
25. United Kingdom

In Asia:
1. Iran
2. Israel
3. Japan
4. Mongolia
5. Taiwan
6. Turkey

In the Americas:
1. Brazil
2. Canada
3. Chili
4. Costa Rica
5. Peru
6. United States
7. Uruguay

Africa and Oceana

In the United States there is a National Socialist Movement which is said to have 400 members spread across 32 states.

Seriously??
You're going to use a few alleged "Nazis" to justify Vlad the Invader conquering, destroying and murdering Ukrainians in their hundreds of thousands?
Why not in the USA?

How insane is that?

In 2008 the US National Socialist Movement from Detroit gathered its strength of 16 members to wave their flags in Washington, DC.

Seriously??

[dfwgator]

Let’s play “Spot The Fed”

[BroJoeK]

Robert DeLong: "Thus is total BS, you cannot equate what happened 80 years ago to what is happening today."

Of course we can, because the US economy worked the same in the 1940s as it does today, with private enterprises manufacturing war materials for profit, and New York financial centers supplying them loans at market interest rates.

In WWII, when 45% of US GDP was devoted to war production, millions of Americans were being well paid, and many thousands grew very wealthy from the war.
One result was our national debt to GDP ratio was the same in 1945 as it is today.
Today only ~3% of US GDP goes to national defense, so the numbers getting wealthy on such government contracts are orders of magnitude less than in WWII.

Robert DeLong: "First, we were not 34 trillion dollars in debt & spending as it debt had zero consequences. "

Relative to our GDP, national debt in 1945 was the same as it is today.

Robert DeLong: "The fact that you even went there with this argument, shows exactly out ignorant you actually are."

FRiend, I don't know where you went to school, but if they taught you there that you can use insults as effective substitutes for fact and logic based arguments, they lied to you.

Seriously, you should rethink all of this.

[BroJoeK]

dfwgator: "Let’s play “Spot The Fed”"

Ha!! That's super easy -- it's only the ones wearing black shirts! 😂

[Robert DeLong]

In 1940, the year we started selling military equipment to the nations involved in the war with Germany, Italy & Japan the US Debt was 43 Billion.

Source for the statement above stating US Debt amount for 1940: U.S. National Debt by Year

US GDP was $1.330 trillion in 1940.

Source for the statement above stating the GDP for 1940: U.S. GDP by Year

In no way is 43 billion 100% + of GDP, not even close.

At the end of 2021 the US Debt was $28,428 Billion, or 28.43 trillion. Again refer to the U.S. National Debt by Year link provided above .

The GDP for 2021 was $19,427 trillion. Again refer to the U.S. GDP by Year link provided above.

Most of the factories present in WWII are long gone. I see no factories being built to build weapons & munitions to supply Ukraine. I see no high paying jobs being created for Americans. The bulk of the new jobs that are claimed & always revised downward later, are part time jobs. We have actually lost high paying jobs.

During WWII we did not have illegal invaders into this nation. The immigrants that came here during that period did not have their housing, food, & necessities being paid for them by the U.S. taxpayers, like these illegal invaders who number in the double-digit millions, with the monetary outlays in the hundreds of billions per annum adding to an already egregious debt burden which is making most Americans tax slaves. They are no longer citizens.

Before & after we entered WWII, we did not hand out the weapons, ammo U military equipment free. They had to pay, and they usually paid in gold I might add. Until that became impossible for them to pay in gold. Then we devised Lend-Lease Program. After the war we helped out allies rebuild.

In Ukraine we are not only Lend-Leasing then just the same as WWII allies got, but we are also paying for the pension plans of Ukrainians, that is not being required to be paid back to my knowledge.

Russia didn't start WWII, it had an agreement with Germany so as to avoid involvement in the hostilities just like the U.S. was doing until their involvement after the Pearl Harbor attack.

BTW, we used that debt that allied nations had incurred to lord over them & dictate their policies, the same will occur with Ukraine.

So both world wars were stated by an European nation, Germany, yet somehow Russia, an Allied nation became the goat, and we had to create NATO to protect Europe from Russia, which helped save Europe twice.

But the really insane part now is that Europe under the leadership of the EU, is killing Europe by , wait for it, immigration. Like Joe Biden & the Marxists Democrats, along with the RINO Republicans, are doing the same thing to the US.

Yet you wonder why I call you a useful idiot?

You are no better than Zelenskyy who is destroying his nation and killing, displacing & abusing his citizens, for what exactly?

As I said, Europe is committing suicide. People are starting to wake up to that fact, just like people in this nation are starting to wake up to the fact that Joe Biden the Democrat & the RINOs are doing to this nation.

But you are still as clueless as can be because you have the behavior of Pavlov's dogs, the only difference is they responded to red meat, while you respond to the Russia scare propaganda.

I know that you & other Zelenskyy/Ukraine cheerleaders think that the threat of a one world government in ridiculous conspiracy nonsense and is not even possible.

Then please tell me why out government is treating the citizens of this nation as being not legitimate & are a threat?

Could it be because they are not working for the peons like you & me Joe. we are nothing but garbage as far as they are concerned. In addition, we are the most viable threat to their plans to bring about a One World Government.

These people working towards that end have the wealth & power. We have the numbers though to defeat them.

For goodness sake man, I am trying to awaken from your slumber believing that this nation is still good. What is true, is that the majority of the people in this country are still good, but the leaders as are as corrupt as any dictator, because they are dictators, and you are assisting them in their endeavor.

Take off your rose-colored glasses and see the reality. It's not that hard to see once you allow yourself to see it. They are in your face. Joe is openly corrupt, the Clintons are also corrupt, but at least they were more discreet and created a foundation to provide cover. They are far from being the only criminals in this conspiracy that is as real as a heart attack.

To end this:

As of the end of 2023, the US government's gross national debt exceeded $33 trillion, according to The New York Times.

There is no end in sight for the deficit spending. US Debt Clock 34.214 trillion debt

[gleeaikin]

How could this list miss Argentina and its 1994 bombing of a Jewish building which was the worst killing of Jews since Germany’s mass murder during WW2. The Jewish community is still working there to reduce and eliminate anti-Semitism from Argentina as reported below.

https://www.ajc.org/news/a-bomb-in-argentina-the-jewish-community-is-standing-and-fighting

[Firehath]

Libs are still prosecuting Kim Davis

Trump was never aware

About what really was going on

Gog pc usa

Magog pc nato

Rev 13

Carrying water for the commies

[BroJoeK]

Robert DeLong: "In 1940, the year we started selling military equipment to the nations involved in the war with Germany, Italy & Japan the US Debt was 43 Billion."

It was $50 billion in 1940, but $43 is close enough, depending on how you count it.

Robert DeLong: "US GDP was $1.330 trillion in 1940."

Not even close.
The actual 1940 GDP number is $101 billion which makes national debt to GDP ratio circa 50%.

Where you might be getting your $1.330 trillion number is by calculating today's inflated value of $101 billion in 1940, which could, arguably, be roughly $1.330 trillion.
But then you'd need to inflate the 1940 $50 billion in national debt to $665 billion in today's dollars, which is still 50% of GDP.

Robert DeLong: "In no way is 43 billion 100% + of GDP, not even close."

Of course, 1940's national debt of circa $50 billion was about 50% of US 1940 GDP of $101 billion.
By 1945 national debt rose to $260 billion, which was then 116% of our GDP of $213 billion.

Today's national debt is said to be $34 trillion against a forecast 2024 GDP of $28 trillion, making the debt-to-GDP ratio 121%, or roughly what it was in 1945.

Today's US national debt to GDP ratio ranks 12th in the world, with Japan, Greece and Italy having higher debts, with Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium and the UK having roughly similar debt-to-GDP ratios.
So today we are worse than we've been since 1945, but still far from the world's worst.

Btw, it's worth noticing that roughly 42% of Federal debt is money the government, in effect, owes to itself, only 58% is owed to non-Federal government entities, meaning our effective debt is only circa $20 trillion, or 71% of GDP.

Robert DeLong: "Most of the factories present in WWII are long gone.
I see no factories being built to build weapons & munitions to supply Ukraine.
I see no high paying jobs being created for Americans.
The bulk of the new jobs that are claimed & always revised downward later, are part time jobs. We have actually lost high paying jobs."

You are correct to point out that the US economy today is nothing like it was in, for example, 1945, after having been geared up to 45% of GDP devoted to military production.
Today we are much closer relatively to the US economy of, say, 1935, which was essentially a peace-time economy hobbled by the Great Depression.
So, it took us years to ramp up production from 1930s levels to those of WWII.
Today, relatively speaking, we are back to roughly where we were in the mid-1930s.

Robert DeLong: "During WWII we did not have illegal invaders into this nation.
The immigrants that came here during that period did not have their housing, food, & necessities being paid for them by the U.S. taxpayers, like these illegal invaders who number in the double-digit millions, with the monetary outlays in the hundreds of billions per annum adding to an already egregious debt burden which is making most Americans tax slaves.
They are no longer citizens."

Immigration was certainly a huge issue in the 1940s, especially Jews and others persecuted by Nazis who wanted to escape to America.
And we did let many of them in, but many more ended up dying in Nazi concentration camps.

As for taxes, we were much more highly taxed even before WWII than we are today.
Taxes during and after WWII went up to 90% of the highest tax brackets.

Robert DeLong: "Before & after we entered WWII, we did not hand out the weapons, ammo U military equipment free.
They had to pay, and they usually paid in gold I might add.
Until that became impossible for them to pay in gold.
Then we devised Lend-Lease Program.
After the war we helped out allies rebuild."

I think the amounts we were actually paid back for those WWII "loans" were, at best, mere inflated pennies on the high-cost dollars' worth of goods we shipped them.
Some countries never paid us back anything, the USSR for one.

Robert DeLong: "In Ukraine we are not only Lend-Leasing then just the same as WWII allies got, but we are also paying for the pension plans of Ukrainians, that is not being required to be paid back to my knowledge."

The best I can do for actual amounts is that of the circa $113 billion in total aid to Ukraine since February 2022, roughly half is for non-military purposes, including humanitarian relief, and of that $4 billion is to support pensions for Ukrainians.
One result of US aid to Ukraine has been to hold the country together as an organized entity strong enough to resist Russian aggression, though not strong enough to decisively defeat Russia.

Robert DeLong: "Russia didn't start WWII, it had an agreement with Germany so as to avoid involvement in the hostilities just like the U.S. was doing until their involvement after the Pearl Harbor attack."

That is a total 100% Russian propaganda KoolAid drinking lie, and it tells us there was something seriously wrong with your education -- I mean indoctrination.
Here's the real truth: it was the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939, dividing up Poland between Hitler and Stalin, which immediately launched the Second World War.

Any other narrative you might concoct are simply lies intended to protect the Old Soviet Communists from the truth.
And why ever would you want to do that?

Robert DeLong: "BTW, we used that debt that allied nations had incurred to lord over them & dictate their policies, the same will occur with Ukraine."

That is insane nonsense-talk -- where did you get that?

The US never "Lorded over" anybody except the defeated Axis powers, and that only for a few years until they were back on their feet again and could elect their own governments.

"Lorded over" is what Old Soviet Russian Communists did, over every country they invaded and occupied, from Estonia to East Germany to Bulgaria.
Nothing the USA did with any of our allies remotely resembled Old Soviet oppression of the peoples behind Russia's "Iron Curtain" from 1945 until roughly 1991.

And, that's exactly the reason why all those countries wanted to join NATO and escape from the USSR'S "Warsaw Pact" now called Russia's CSTO -- "Collective Security Treaty Organization".

This is 100% proof that whatever you learned positive about Russia is a lie, as is whatever you've learned negative about the USA.
Given the choice, no country wanted to join Russia's CSTO and every former Soviet Empire country wanted to join NATO.

Why is that?

Robert DeLong: "So both world wars were stated by an European nation, Germany, yet somehow Russia, an Allied nation became the goat, and we had to create NATO to protect Europe from Russia, which helped save Europe twice."

Seriously?? Who do you think you're kidding?
Here's the real truth:

1. In August 1939 Hitler and Stalin together launched the Second World War by invading and conquering Poland.
   Did you catch those two names -- Hitler and Stalin, together, zusammen, вместе or vmeste, collaborating together as allies they launched the Second World War in Europe.
   Nobody else did it, it was just those two.

2. And just in case you fantasize the Stalin-Hitler Pact was just a piece of paper, it also included Stalin supplying Hitler with:
   • one million tons of cereals,
   • half-a-million tons of wheat,
   • 900,000 tons of oil,
   • 100,000 tons of cotton,
   • 500,000 tons of phosphates and
   • considerable amounts of other vital raw materials, along with
   • the transit of one million tons of soybeans from Manchuria.

3. But what about the First World War -- certainly despite their loud protestations ever since, WWI was ~90% started by Kaiser Wilhelm's government, with the Kaiser's approval, but the other 10% responsibility goes to Russia's Tsar, who immediately mobilized to threaten Austria against invading Serbia.
   In the German Kaiser's mind, the Tsar mobilizing forced Germany to also mobilize and declare war on France!!!.
   I'm not saying Kaiser Willy wasn't insane, but his cousin Tsar Nicky wasn't much better.

4. In the First World War, all the old Kaisers, Tsars, Emperors & Sultans paid for their insane stupidities by being overthrown and in the Tsar's case, murdered.

   After the Old Tsar was deposed in 1917, Russian Communists negotiated the Treaty of Brest Litovsk with the German Empire, which gave up to Germany all non-Russian countries including:

   • Finland
   • Estonia
   • Latvia
   • Lithuania
   • Poland
   • Belarus
   • Moldova
   • Ukraine
   • Armenia
   • Azurbaijan
   • Georgia

5. As one result of Brest-Litovsk, in 1918 Germany withdrew over a million troops from their Eastern Front and threw those against Allied armies in France.
   And this would have won WWI for Germany -- should have, could have won the war -- except for the fact that at the last possible moment, American "Dough-boys" were beginning to arrive and there were just enough of them to make the difference between allied defeat and holding the line.
   And in due time, by the fall of 1918 there were enough fresh American troops to turn the tide of war against Germany despite Russian surrender and Brest-Litovsk concessions.

6. In the Second World War, Old Uncle Joe Stalin remained 100% loyal to his ally Hitler right up until the very day Hitler invaded the Soviet Union!
   Even then it took Moscow weeks to even begin to respond to Hitler's invasion with anything resembling a coordinated defense and the result was massive defeats and destructions of whole Soviet armies.

7. Of course the Old Soviets never wanted to confess how much of their victory over Hitler in 1945 was the result of massive American and British aid, which in today's terms was at least hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of everything from trucks to tanks to aircraft to radios and telephone cable.
   Nor did Soviets ever pay it back.

   

8. During and after WWII the Soviets converted every country they had invaded into a Soviet Empire client state to be ruled over by Moscow for Moscow's benefit.

9. By 1946 the threat to Western Europe from Soviet sponsored communist revolutions and military invasion became so great Winston Churchill labeled the Soviet Empire an "Iron Curtain".
   By 1948 Stalin's aggressions, as typified by his closing Berlin and the Berlin Airlift response, drove Western Europe to form NATO.

That's a lot of history in a just a few words.

Robert DeLong: "But the really insane part now is that Europe under the leadership of the EU, is killing Europe by , wait for it, immigration.
Like Joe Biden & the Marxists Democrats, along with the RINO Republicans, are doing the same thing to the US."

No American is opposed to immigration if it's lawful, controlled and reasonable numbers.
But our Democrats have figured out ways to weaponize immigration against American citizens and so boost their own representation in various levels of government.
This is an existential threat to the USA, but there is only one possible solution, and that will be to vote Democrats out of power in all branches of Federal government in November 2024.
That is the only response which can solve the problem.
Allowing Vlad the Invader to have his way in Ukraine will do nothing to improve illegal immigration in the USA.

Robert DeLong: "Yet you wonder why I call you a useful idiot?"

It's because you literally know nothing true about anything and are yourself a very useful idiot of the Russian Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda.

Robert DeLong: "You are no better than Zelenskyy who is destroying his nation and killing, displacing & abusing his citizens, for what exactly?"

At the peak of Zelenskyy's popularity in late 2022 it was 90% approval among Ukrainian voters.
Today, after a frustrating 2023, his popularity is still around 75% among Ukrainians.
So there is simply no doubt that Ukrainians strongly support their leaders' resistance to Vlad the Invader's insane "special military operations" against Ukraine.

Robert DeLong: "As I said, Europe is committing suicide.
People are starting to wake up to that fact, just like people in this nation are starting to wake up to the fact that Joe Biden the Democrat & the RINOs are doing to this nation."

Right now, there is no country on Earth which appears more suicidal than Vlad the Invader's Russia.
No other country on the planet is throwing nearly 1,000 troops per day into suicidal "Meat Wave" assaults against fixed Ukrainian positions for the possible gain of only a few yards of Ukrainian territory.

Vlad the Invader's massive insanity defies any rational explanation.
The only thing that comes anywhere remotely close is the mystical, magical, cultish "Russkiy Mir".

Robert DeLong: "But you are still as clueless as can be because you have the behavior of Pavlov's dogs, the only difference is they responded to red meat, while you respond to the Russia scare propaganda."

Here you are accurately describing yourself, while projecting your own nature onto me.
It's pure 100% nonsense, of course.

Robert DeLong: "I know that you & other Zelenskyy/Ukraine cheerleaders think that the threat of a one world government in ridiculous conspiracy nonsense and is not even possible."

I think the threat from expansion of Vlad the Invader's "Russkiy Mir" Soviet-style empire is real and tangible and vastly greater than anything realistic in western-style democratic countries.

Robert DeLong: "Then please tell me why out government is treating the citizens of this nation as being not legitimate & are a threat?"

Politics -- there's no doubt our Democrats play super-hardball politics while most Republicans are playing with smurf-balls.
That's just one reason we need a Republican president like Donald Trump.
He can and will play the Democrats' hardball and beat them at it.

Robert DeLong: "Could it be because they are not working for the peons like you & me Joe.
we are nothing but garbage as far as they are concerned.
In addition, we are the most viable threat to their plans to bring about a One World Government."

I have never in my life felt like a peon or garbage.
Regardless, this is why we will hopefully elect Donald Trump in November, along with his majorities in both houses of Congress.
We can then expect them to make most of what you complain about right again in a very short time.

Robert DeLong: "For goodness sake man, I am trying to awaken from your slumber believing that this nation is still good.
What is true, is that the majority of the people in this country are still good, but the leaders as are as corrupt as any dictator, because they are dictators, and you are assisting them in their endeavor."

I'm sorry, but yet again you are just babbling nonsense, all the while admitting that once we've replaced our corrupt Democrats with Trump led Republicans, the problem is already well started on being solved.

Robert DeLong: "Joe is openly corrupt, the Clintons are also corrupt, but at least they were more discreet and created a foundation to provide cover."

Of course, they are, and they all belong in jail, along with many other leading Democrats and some Republicans too.
But I doubt if we'll see that, and will be reasonably satisfied if Pres. Trump just puts a stop to the worst of those abuses.

Again I refer you to the national debt to GDP ratio since 1940 in my post #110 above.

[x]

I didn't realize Stalin and Gavin Newsom had the same barber ...

[gleeaikin]

I didn’t realize they had time travel either.

[MeganC]

Dang! You took Bobby to school!

[BroJoeK]

x: "I didn't realize Stalin and Gavin Newsom had the same barber ..."

Ha!!

Welcome to Free Republic Ukraine threads, FRiend.

[Robert DeLong]

Robert DeLong: "US GDP was $1.330 trillion in 1940."

Not even close.

The actual 1940 GDP number is $101 billion which makes national debt to GDP ratio circa 50%.

That confirms that my claim that the debt to GDP was not 100+% in WWII, so you proved my point. Because our GDP in 2021 was $19,427 (19.4 trillion) while our debt was $28,428 (28.4 trillion) which is almost 150% or three time worse than WWII. We also were not many generations into SSI, we were also not paying for an invasion of our country, and we also were not paying out SSI benefits to people who never paid a dime for those benefits to people who did not immigrate to this nation legally.

The population of this nation was 1/3 of the current population, or perhaps even less. The nation was more homogenous as well.

There are many things that are not even close to be the same in today's America to the America that existed before during and after WWII.

Let's try immigration numbers during WWII & see if you can grasp what is being said:

How Many Refugees Came to the United States from 1933-1945?

Approximately 125,000 Germans, most of them Jewish, immigrated to the United States between 1933 and 1945.

In the 3 years of the Biden Usurpation of the Presidency, more than 10 million people have invaded our nation, and the American taxpayer is picking up the bill for their complete expenses, aren't we such lucky people to get to pay for their existence here.

Immigration fell significantly after the 1924 law went into effect. In 1929, the Great Depression began. President Herbert Hoover ordered the State Department to make sure immigrants would not become economic burdens to the United States. Immigration plummeted even further.

But the real kicker Joe, is that you are pouring more debt burdens upon American children, which are this nation's future, and you seem to be perfectly content in doing so. You should be ashamed of yourself. Like I keep telling you , this nation is the lynchpin for freedoms & rights, not Ukraine. When we fall, the world falls into the hands of tyrants.

Oh, BTW, Russia never signed anything with Germany. The USSR signed the non-aggression agreement. That was a little test for you. You failed just as miserably as you always do. Russia was overrun by the communists, not that Tsar Russia was much better, but it was better.

By 1946 the threat to Western Europe from Soviet sponsored communist revolutions and military invasion became so great Winston Churchill labeled the Soviet Empire an "Iron Curtain". By 1948 Stalin's aggressions, as typified by his closing Berlin and the Berlin Airlift response, drove Western Europe to form NATO.

Yep, NATO was formed to be a check upon the USSR, which imploded 30 years ago. So, why is there still a NATO? The threat is in the dustbin of history. But if Russia is a threat it's because we treat Russia as the USSR, instead of integrating them into the western society nations. Why is that? Russia may have been involved in Georgia before Ukraine & Ukraine now, but Georgia president actually asked Russia to come in a quell a rebellion. But we have certain been the cause of concern for Russia. By the fact that we are engaged in a proxy war with Russia proves that their perception of hostility towards them are justified.

Just as you fail to see the difference between the communist controlled USSR & the democratically elected Russian leaders are quite different, you also fail to see how different this nation is with the before & after of the 2020 election theft.

But this debate is done. I'm tired of trying to debate a brick wall.