Ukrainian court places Orthodox cleric under house arrest

dw.com ^ | April 1, 2023

[Vlad0]

I always support arresting the agents of a hostile foreign government.

With any luck you’ll be next.

Is that a thinly veiled threat?

Every time you post there is a little reminder:

"Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.

I know things get heated up. We sometimes post things we shouldn't. (I posted something with the word "b*tch" in it directed at another poster. That was wrong. The mods helped out by deleting it.)

So: to be clear with you. I veiew your comment as a thinly veiled threat, and a personal attack.

Please desist. If you do it again I'll report it to the mods.

I am not an "agent" of anyone. It's a silly claim. Do you really think Russia (or anyone else) pays people to post on Free Republic? We're not that important any more.

FR's web site ranking is: 31,571.

Some comparables:

• Breitbart: 2,491
• Gateway Pundit: 497
• New York Times: 79
• Twitter: 4
• Gab: 7,204

Nope, this place is a gathering spot for a small slice of the Conservative movement. Skewed towards boomers.

[M Kehoe]

Hi.

Did you know Amazon acquired Alexis last year. There is much consolidation occurring in these types of sites.

Interesting drop to FR from Alexis 18 months ago.

Microsoft acquired both a AI start up and a ranking service.

Seems like certain people want to control all the information.

5.56mm

[Vlad0]

And, which side are you on? Russia or Ukraine.

Russia's reasons and justifications make a lot more sense to me than Ukraine's. Ukraine is a hyper-corrupt entity that is the playground of the WEF crowd. Remember, the first attempt to remove Trump was all based on Ukrainians - their accusations, their listening in, their interpretation of things, and Trump's conversations with a certain specific Ukrainian.

That's not a coincidence, it's enemy action (to paraphrase Ian Flemming)

Ultimately I am on America's side, not Russia's. And certainly not Ukraines.

And which country is more democratic, even if they don't have all the freedoms that Americans enjoy?

America is raplidly losing any distinction it had to being more free than other countries. (For instance: treatment of January 6 defendants, arrest, prosecution and conviction of "Ricky Vaughn" for posting a meme. Arrest of the opposition leader: just today! (Donald J. Trump)). Not much difference between us and what we used to make fun of.

It is my analysis that victory of Ukraine will strengthen the grip of the authoritarian Biden regime and their allies on America.

Improving America will be advanced by a Russian victory.

We were allies with Russia in the last fight against Fascist Authoritarianism (WW2), despite them being a Communist country at the time. (Of course then we had the cold war).

Now Russia is no longer Communist, there is even less reason not to support them in thier fight against Fascist Authoritarians.

Zelensky has a far harder line against people in Ukraine than Putin in Russia. He's arrested all the opposition leaders and banned most other political parties. Now, as this article shows, he's starting in on the majority religion. (Which, of course, conveniently he isn't a member of).

Oh, yeah, he's also killed two journalists in a year using terrorist bombings! That's not a "democratic" leader I can support.

He's lower than a snake's belly and I sincerely hope he's deposed and replaced soon.

Gregory Hood:

It does mean that we can dismiss naïve claims about the “marketplace of ideas.” American society is governed from the top down by control of media, with the state and its security organs partially determining who speaks and who does not. It is not outright totalitarian, but neither is Russia. This doesn’t stop people from accurately calling Russia an illiberal, authoritarian regime. If America isn’t quite as authoritarian as Russia — and that’s debatable — it’s clearly moving in this direction, but in defense of values of which the media approve.

This is terrible, and we have to fight to end and undo it. The zillions in money going to "Zelensky" (ie: Globalist entities to surpress us and pull off another "Color Revolution" in America) is one of the main vectors of our continued oppression as actual real Americans by the evil Biden regime / Biden Occupation Government.

Therefore I oppose Biden AND his puppet Zelensky AND the cause of whatever they are doing over there.

Russia hasn't done anything to me. Ukraine has and will.

[Vlad0]

Foreign policy includes aid for our friends

Is foreign aid legal. (Constitutional?)

No matter how many times I read the Constitution I can not find any part of it that justifies giving money to foreign countries.

It is certainly way outside the ennumerated powers of the Congress.

It doesn't seem to fit into the commerce clause loophole that Liberals so love. (I don't agree that the commerce clause acutlly permits most of waht it's used to justify. That's another poor Supreme Court decision by the same guy who laid the foundation for the other horrible one (Roe V. Wade) -- (that is S.C. Justice William O. Douglas), but that's a larger issue.

There is some argument that commerce between States requires Federal expenditures but Ukraine and other foreign beneficiaries of US Aid are not "within and between the States".

It's all illegal, foreign aid, in my opinion. Like much of FDR's Revolution we just accept it, because we are used to it. But it does not accord with the actual highest law of the land.

[adorno]

No matter how many times I read the Constitution I can not find any part of it that justifies giving money to foreign countries.

Too late to ask your questions.

The only spending that is authorized under the constitution, is for defense. Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, subsidized housing and just about everything else, are not constitutional. Even the IRS and social security are not authorized.

With defense, comes its sister mandate, which is foreign aid. Foreign aid is an attempt to keep foreign problems away from our shores, and it would be a lot less expensive to keep the enemy at bay than to have to fight him here at home.

[adorno]

Ukraine is a hyper-corrupt entity

By that standard, we don't belong anywhere in the world. And by that standard, Russia is the most corrupt nation in the world, were people such as Putin can use his corrupt ways to mandate the country to invade its neighbors. Which country is the most aggressive? Russia or Ukraine? Was Ukraine ready to invade Russia or any of its neighbors?

Check your way of thinking. It stinks.

[Vlad0]

and it would be a lot less expensive to keep the enemy at bay than to have to fight him here at home.

Nah. I don't buy it. Places like Chad (a country in Africa) offer ZERO threat to us.

It's only because of the expansive view of "American interests" that we have all this aid.

In fact DeSantis was right the first time, the Ukraine - Russia thing is a border dispute.

If we had not been building up a huge military force there (Ukraine in NATO) we would not have the war, we would not be sending hundreds of billions of dollars there.

The NeoCons all get rich pretending that Chad and Ukraine are of "Strategic Importance" - they get money, their phoney think tanks get money ("Institute for the Study of War"), their friends in Euro get money, the EU gets money, African dictators and generals get money.

You've already surrendered on the main point: it's all unconstitutoinal.

But then say "Too Late".

I don't get that. If it's too late for the Constitution to be applied as written then what is our defense against total civilian disarmament, or heinous "hate speech" laws shutting down Free Republic? Or a zillion other not-so-hard-to-imagine depredations that the Cloud People would like to impose on the Dirt People?

[adorno]

I don't buy it. Places like Chad (a country in Africa) offer ZERO threat to us.

Chad is Africa. It's not just a single country that counts.

China knows it and China is replacing us there, so, is that what you want?

And, yes, it's too late to ask your questions. This is a completely different world now from what our founding fathers knew. We have been the world's policeman and it's too late to pull back.