DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus How did Putin Convince Republicans to support RUSSIA

Ah, changing the goal posts, eh?

Go back and read my second post on this. It only matters what initial is behind the name.

To be honest, I could care less about the deferments. I would ask you and others how they support a man that degrades those that served and the one that died or were injured?

For me, there are few things worse that you can do! JMO however.

So how do you play tennis and squash in college with bone spurs again?

Maybe the same way you play football in college with asthma?

Let's go back: Trump was called a draft dodger.

He got 4 deferments for school.

He got a medical deferment, for a fifth deferment.

Biden got 5 deferments for school.

He also got a 5th deferment for a medical deferment. But he's not a draft dodger?




If one is a dodger, the other 1 is. If 1 is not, the other one isn't, either.

Now, if we want to discuss how wealthier people were able to get deferments, let's do that.

Sure! Kids and teens with asthma can play sports as long as their asthma is managed and under control. Being active, working out, and playing sports can help kids with asthma stay fit and maintain a healthy weight. It also can strengthen their breathing muscles to help the lungs work better.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=people+can+play+football+with+asthma

Can you be a professional football player with asthma?

For many athletes, an asthma diagnosis does not have to be career-ending news. In fact, these football players, track stars, and swimmers have been able to manage their condition and break records.

https://www.healthline.com/health/famous-athletes-with-asthma


How about playing tennis and squash with bone spurs? I know you would just love to gloss over this but that isn't going to work. You keep trying to make it sound as if the two are the same thing. They're not.

David Beckham, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Greg Louganis, Jerome Bettis, and other athletes have played as well as excelled at their sports whom all have asthma.

Bone spurs by contrast have sidelined many athletes. But please, do go on.

https://www.politifact.com/factchec...en-didnt-use-health-excuses-dodge-draft/

https://www.businessinsider.com/don...s-common-at-the-time-vietnam-war-2018-12

The thing that you are talking about is the Dr that said Trump had bone spurs was later deemed to be unreliable.

This reminds me of the time that stated that George W. Bush was kind of a dummy (I voted for him twice by the way) and I was immediately told he had an Ivy League education. What he had was the diploma but was that earned or bought. There are different rules for the wealthy.

So to they are the same just doesn't fit well with reality.

He must have forgotten that unlike trump, Biden didn't come from a wealthy family.

NOPE. You were allowed to get a deferment for college and those kids got a break. I’m sure Papa Trump just paid for Donny’s medical excuse and deferment. There is no reality where these two are the same unless you are stuck on stupid.

Just another data point…

Again, find me one time he stood up to Putin. Just one.

It really stinks to high heaven.

Those who choose to live in denial concerning Putin/Russia's take over of the GOP...you might want to listen to your Republicans complain about how the GOP is already infected and supportive of Putin/Russian propaganda...so much so, that some elected RWers openly repeat the Russian propaganda on the floors of Congress.

Key Republican reps: Russian propaganda has ‘infected’ much of the GOP

When powerful Republican committee chairs start complaining about their party being "infected" with Russian propaganda, it's clear the GOP has a problem.

April 8, 2024, 8:44 AM EDT
By Steve Benen
link
On Capitol Hill, there are a small handful of prominent Republicans who have a reputation for occasionally breaking party ranks and showing a degree of independence. GOP members such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example, has been rather bold about expressing her dissatisfaction with the GOP’s direction under Donald Trump’s direction.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, however, are not exactly known as Republican “mavericks.” They’re both longtime conservative partisans whose views tend to dovetail nicely with GOP orthodoxy. When Democrats search in desperation for potential Republican moderates who might be willing to work on bipartisan compromises, Turner’s and McCaul’s phones do not ring.

With this in mind, their latest rhetoric about their party and Russian propaganda is generating a lot of interest, and for good reason. NBC News reported:

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.” “We see directly coming from Russia ... communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The Ohio Republican didn’t name names, though he added, in apparent reference to members of his own party, “There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not.”

The Intelligence Committee chair isn’t alone. Just five days before Turner’s on-air comments to CNN, McCaul was surprisingly candid in comments to Puck News’s Julia Ioffe. “I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base,” the Texan lamented.

McCaul added, “There are some more nighttime entertainment shows that seem to spin, like, I see the Russian propaganda in some of it — and it’s almost identical [to what Russian audiences hear from state-run media] — on our airwaves.” The Republican went on to admonish those who “read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda.”

There can be little doubt that these powerful GOP committee chairmen are correct. Their party has a “Putin wing“; it’s loud; it’s growing; and it’s having a dramatic impact on the party’s base.

All of which makes it all the more notable to see leading Republican voices such as McCaul and Turner push back. What’s more, as The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake explained, there are some other recent examples, including Republican Sen. Thom Tillis warning his GOP colleagues not to become Putin apologists.

The North Carolinian didn’t call out any Republicans in particular, though it’s not difficult to come up with plenty of compelling examples.

As this lengthens the list of intraparty GOP fissures, House Speaker Mike Johnson is poised to move forward with plans for an aid package for Ukraine — which will be targeted with a vengeance from far-right members whose views echo the Kremlin’s agenda. Watch this space.

House Intelligence Committee chair says Russian propaganda has spread through parts of GOP

By Avery Lotz, CNN
2 minute read
Updated 10:30 PM EDT, Sun April 7, 2024
link

video:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/07/politics/mike-turner-russia-ukraine-propaganda-gop-cnntv/index.html

CNN- House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has “absolutely” seeped its way to Congress, saying some of his Republican colleagues have repeated false claims on the chamber’s floor.

“It is absolutely true we see, directly coming from Russia, attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” the Ohio Republican told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

Turner’s comments come after House Foreign Affairs chair Michael McCaul’s told Puck News last week that Russian propaganda has “infected a good chunk” of the GOP base.

Turner, who has been an outspoken advocate of passing additional aid to embattled Ukraine, said Sunday: “There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not.”

“To the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle,” he added.

The Senate passed a $95.3 billion foreign aid bill that included assistance for Ukraine and Israel in February, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose future as a leader in the party remains uncertain following Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s move to oust him from the speakership, refused to immediately bring the package for a vote.

Turner said Sunday he does not believe Johnson is at “any risk” of being ousted by the “chaos caucus,” pointing to members “who are seeking attention for themselves and trying to stop all of the important work in Congress.”

Jc

How did Putin get republicans to support Russia?

Easy, through the NRA. Republican voting men are the biggest simps in the world. Place some young redhead from Russia who loves guns into NRA events, whisper some sweet nothings, and you got yourself an entire party.

This article author definitely has an axe to grind, but it is important to distinguish the quotes from Mike Johnson and what he says. He's definitely setting forth and hammering something that goes against his self-interest in potentially remaining speaker. Generally, when people profess something that goes against their self-interest, it has a high likelihood of veracity. Anyhow, here is the article. I'm glad he called out Vance as well.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mike-johnson-shockingly-pro-ukraine-100100484.html

It was a remarkable moment: After introducing a package of bills that includes military aid to Ukraine, Mike Johnson flatly told reporters on Wednesday that enabling Ukraine to defend itself is in the best interests of America and the world. This surprised a lot of people who had wrongly assumed the House speaker was effectively functioning as a stooge for Vladimir Putin—and Donald Trump—and would thus slow-walk Ukraine aid to death before ever allowing a vote on it.

Johnson’s new stance has attracted a good deal of positive attention. But I want to highlight an aspect of it that’s been overlooked because it’s an important tell about the true state of MAGA ideology and what it’s demanding of Republicans these days.

“I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said, in a moment that became a mini-speech. “I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland, or one of our NATO allies.” If so, he added, we might find ourselves sending troops to defend allies from Putin later.

Did we really hear the speaker say that he believes what our intelligence services have told him about the long-term consequences of cutting off aid to Ukraine?

This is a direct challenge to the MAGA worldview in multiple ways. Johnson is treating Putin as the aggressor in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and acknowledging his broader imperialist designs, which is heresy to some MAGA Republicans. But he’s also flatly declaring that on these matters, the deep state is very much to be believed.

A big MAGA conceit is the idea that a nefarious deep-state network of senior federal bureaucrats, nongovernmental experts, and technocratic and managerial elites lurks behind the push to fund Ukraine—and that it’s making up lies about Russia’s war to create a pretext to fulfill a broader set of sinister globalist aims. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently tweeted this:

The Ukraine scam is up.

If our Republican majority in Congress funds Joe Biden’s war against Russia on behalf of Ukraine (because he’s a puppet on strings) then Republicans are tools of the foreign war loving deep state.

This is probably MAGA’s most elaborate exercise in up-is-down totalitarian-style propaganda of all: Biden is being manipulated by a deep-state “scam”—i.e., the idea that Ukraine is worth defending—to carry out a war against Russia, which has been magically transformed from aggressor to victim.

The horrible atrocities against Ukraine the world has witnessed, Putin’s declarations that the sovereign democracy of Ukraine isn’t a real country and shouldn’t exist, the consequent effort to erase it with murderous conquest—all of that disappears in this fog of MAGA propaganda. This sort of thing is why even some senior Republicans suggest that a number of House GOP lawmakers are operating under the influence of Russia.

Johnson’s affirmation that he believes our intelligence services on these matters is a direct rebuke to those MAGA tendencies.

The bills that GOP leaders have introduced—which are scheduled for votes on Saturday—are also surprisingly faithful to the intel agencies’ apparent understanding of this geopolitical moment. They include $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel, funding for Taiwan, and humanitarian assistance, including for victims in Gaza, which is essential to winning the support of Democrats who will be needed when right-wing Republicans oppose the package.

Greene had threatened to hold a motion-to-vacate vote to oust Johnson if he moved forward with Ukraine aid. If so, there are signs that Democrats will vote to save Johnson if Ukraine aid passes. Either way, Johnson appears prepared to brave MAGA’s fury—and the word of U.S intelligence services is a key reason for it.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with healthy skepticism of what our intelligence services are saying. That’s reasonable. After all, they contributed to whipping up the ultimately false assertions about weapons of mass destruction that helped justify the Iraq War.

But reasoned skepticism is not what MAGA Republicans are offering. Instead, they’re pushing carefully choreographed propaganda that seeks to entirely erase Russian agency from the story of the conflict and to transform Ukraine’s allies into the true warmongers here.

Greene’s effort at this is obvious. Then you have Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted that the aid bills will “hurt my father’s ability to negotiate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine” if he’s reelected president, whereas “globalist” Republicans who support the package want indefinite war.

But that’s absurd. As international relations professor Nicholas Grossman shows, the idea behind rhetoric like this—a ruse that other MAGA Republicans regularly employ—is to recast our choice as one between “peace” (which we’d attain by refraining from aiding Ukraine) and “war” (which we’re facilitating with Ukraine aid). In reality, withholding aid is not antiwar at all; it merely makes Russian conquest more likely to continue and succeed (which is perhaps the whole point of this framing).

Even supposedly shrewder MAGA Republicans play a version of this sleazy game. Ohio Senator J.D. Vance recently wrote a New York Times op-ed arguing that Ukraine is losing and our aid won’t give it what it needs in equipment (or soldiers) to prevail. Democrats have effectively rebutted those claims. But Vance also slips into his piece the idea that in providing aid, “we”—meaning the United States—would “prolong a long and bloody war,” and suggests the primary obstacle to peace is President Biden’s unwillingness to negotiate toward it.

But how does Vance himself envision the war ending? Couldn’t it mean Russia gobbles up much or even all of Ukraine? Vance doesn’t say, beyond insisting we should forget about Ukraine regaining all of its stolen territory. Thus he too frames the choice as one between peace (ending aid) and war (continuing it). Presto: Opposing the package suddenly becomes the antiwar position, and being for the package becomes the pro-war one. That’s slippery, dishonest rhetorical trickery that you’d think is below Times standards.

This is the sort of deceitfulness that Johnson has effectively taken on. By affirming what abandoning Ukraine would really mean, and stressing that the deep state is telling lawmakers the truth about it, Johnson has for the time being taken a stance against one of MAGA’s most cherished—and most toxic—propaganda tropes. No wonder Greene is beside herself with rage.

House takes key step forward on foreign aid bills with Democratic support, setting up final vote Saturday

The House voted Friday in a bipartisan manner to advance a key foreign aid package, a significant step in sending aid to Ukraine and Israel and setting up a final vote as soon as Saturday.

In an extraordinary move, more Democrats (165) supported the measure than Republicans (151). The Democratic votes were necessary to overcome opposition from Speaker Mike Johnson’s right flank, who will likely only increase their calls to oust him.

The fight over the bills – and the potential for right-wing members of the GOP to attempt to oust Johnson over it – adds up to the most intense pressure that the speaker has faced over his future in his short time in the role. Rep. Thomas Massie on Tuesday said he would co-sponsor Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate, which would boot Johnson from the speakership if it passed, leading the speaker to defiantly tell reporters that he would not be resigning.

Greene left the US Capitol on Friday following the vote without moving to oust Johnson.

The GOP-led House Rules Committee late Thursday night also used Democratic support to advance the bills.

The move is likely to further inflame conservatives who are against additional aid to Ukraine and have threatened Johnson’s job over the issue.

The committee activity capped off another contentious day on Capitol Hill as the renewed push to send foreign aid to Ukraine has divided House Republicans. The right wing of the GOP conference has come out against the plan and vented their anger over a separate effort to change House rules regarding the process for removing the speaker – a rule change Johnson said Thursday he would not make.

Three Republicans – Massie, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas – voted against the foreign aid legislation in committee Thursday night, but all Democrats on the panel voted for it.

Three bills in the foreign aid package would provide aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region, with the latter intended to help deter Chinese aggression in the area. A fourth bill includes other House GOP priorities, including sanctions on Iran, the seizure of frozen Russian sovereign assets and a measure that could lead to a nationwide ban of TikTok.

The three House aid bills add up to about $95 billion – the same amount the Senate bill included – with an adjustment that $10 billion in Ukraine economic assistance is in the form of a repayable loan, CNN has reported.

The three assistance bills are similar to the foreign aid legislation that passed the Senate in February. The fourth House bill was not part of the Senate package.

Johnson, appearing on Newsmax, suggested the timing for a vote on the package would be “early Saturday.” He did not elaborate, and his office told CNN exact timing is still being worked out.

According to the rule, if the bills pass the House, they will be combined into one amendment before being sent to the Senate.

Earlier Thursday, the House Freedom Caucus took an official stance urging House Republicans to oppose the procedural vote, arguing “to secure the border we must kill the rule.”

“The House Freedom Caucus will vote NO on rule for the ‘America Last’ foreign wars supplemental package with zero border security, and urge all House Republicans to do the same,” the group said in a statement posted on X.

With Republicans controlling the House only by a razor-thin margin, Johnson will have to rely on a significant number of Democrats to get the bill through procedural hurdles, especially with a growing number of hardliners upset about border security provisions.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/18/politics/foreign-aid-bills-house-rule-vote/index.html

Gosar becomes third House GOP member to back effort to oust Johnson from speakership

Rep. Paul Gosar on Friday signed on to the effort to remove Speaker Mike Johnson from his job, the Arizona Republican announced in a news release, becoming the third member to do so.

Gosar huddled on the House floor earlier in the day with GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, the other two co-sponsors of the motion to vacate the speakership.

They have not taken steps to force a floor vote on the resolution.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/19/politics/paul-gosar-mike-johnson-house-gop/index.html

Mike Johnson decided to stand up to Putin. GOP hardliners won't stand for that.

How did Putin convince Republicans to support Russia? Sent a box of sex toys to the last Epstein tribute at the RNC? Allowed Donald and Marge to fondle his junk? Your guess is as good as mine for why traitors become traitors. MAGA DTers should answer this question.

Now you know they don't confront anything like this. It's not important enough to them it seems.

They are too stoopid to know that they are being played.