I cannot stress enough how many Javelin rockets and launchers need to get sent to Ukraine TODAY. Raytheon and Lockheed need to start cranking them out under blank check federal purchasing conditions and then we need to send them out AFAHP.
This is a clear example of why Trump was a threat to our national security, not only while president, but also post-presidency. He needs to keep his mouth shut, but that won't happen until he's either in a cell or six feet under.
First, he makes some idiotic remark to Ingraham about our southern border, listing highly specific details (that he made up) such as 3 million people crossing the southern border from 129 different countries, and in the same breath says we have no idea what's happening. If we know they're coming from 129 different countries, doesn't it sound like we might know what's happening?
Then, when he rebukes Ingraham for saying Americans were making an amphibious attack, saying that should be secret and not broadcast on television, she corrects Trump and says that's not what she said. Then Trump says, well, that will be next (didn't you just tell Ingraham not to say what you just said?).
This is positively infuriating. As a former president, Trump still has access to classified information. Intelligence reports even, should he wish to access them. And he gets on national tv talking about secret missions that cable news pundits shouldn't have access to, and even after that pundit tries to change the subject, Trump doubles down and says "Well, the assault is coming anyway." The Bulwark has made it very clear that they're just blaring Fox News's prime time propaganda line up on Russia State tv, so Russia is not only seeing this, but studying this.
And it's just a reminder that Trump is excessively venal, he's about to be stripped of any access to bank loans because his businesses are thoroughly corrupt, and he has access to very sensitive state secrets if he chooses to indulge himself. One of the commentators on Beg To Differ, I think Linda Chavez, smartly pointed out on a recent episode that she was pretty certain Trump stole all of those White House documents and brought them to Maralago so he could sell them, and I can't think of why she would be wrong. This menace has access to a treasure trove of sensitive information, zero scruples, an insatiable appetite for money, and connections with very generous potential buyers.
Chilling but brave comments by Ukraine, I only hope this can be resolved without too much blood shed. the Western world can not sit by and watch this for much longer without taking military action, sanctions won't stop it.
Perhaps Reagan’s deals with the Russians in the late 80s only worked because the USSR was on its last breath, in the wake of the arms race, SDI, and internal decay. And maybe we shouldn’t have relaxed so much based on agreements which now Moscow has shown they are ready to tear up.
Seems Caspar Weinberger’s unceasingly hawkish views have been proven correct- and we never should’ve let up on them
He said NEVER trust Moscow on anything, and was chased out of the administration for it by Nancy R and George Schultz.
Now I really can’t think of a reason why we should view the Putin regime any differently than Pyongyang- there’s no such thing as a binding contract with them, unless you’ve got a gun to their head
The anti-anti-authoritarian nonsense out of the nationalist/populist MAGA cult is going to be off the charts today. Can't wait to hear how everything is the fault of NeverTrump... <shakes head, adds bourbon to coffee, prays for the people of Ukraine>
People underestimate three reasons why the right has morphed on Russia. First, once communism went away, Russia = atheist went away and the Christian right is very pro-Putin because Putin uses the Russian Orthodox Church as a cloak to trumpet his pro-religious credentials (even though as a person he is far from Christian. Second, Putin does not like any dissention and has cracked down on "the gays", which the American Christian right not only loves, but actually advocated for in Moscow. Third, the right has always been very drawn to rugged men and Putin presents himself this way (there is a book about the American religious right and John Wayne that makes this point quite well).
How so many people on the Right support Russia on this is incomprehensible; Ukraine, for all it's problems, is basically a free and open society, whereas Russia is an authoritarian state par excellence. But I suppose the Right sees Russian as a model for the USA? If Trump gets back in power, he will withdrawl from Nato and Russia will seek to dominate Europe even mnore.
Thank you for this, Charlie. As I’m sure you agree, this is the most menacing development globally since the end of WWII. I take Putin at his word that he is ready to respond to countries getting in the way of his invasion of Ukraine. He said:
"Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so, to create threats for our country, for our people, should know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences that you have never experienced in your history.“
If Putin decides to escalate this conflict in response to sanctions or whatever excuses he devises, the difference between today and prior eras is that he can disrupt communications and infrastructure and land missiles in cities all across Europe in a matter of minutes. And, speaking of “consequences that you have never experienced in your history,” Putin can also hit the US with the same, and now can also hit New York or DC, or Boston with supersonic conventional missiles that there are simply no defenses against.
We in the US are used to being too far away from Europe or most any flashpoints to suffer harm to our homeland. This no longer applies. Putin has become unhinged. Don’t think he wouldn’t like an excuse to cause blackouts and bring down IT and information systems throughout the US and send a missile or two into the US and watch the America people panic.
Our homegrown authoritarians are on Putin’s side in this. Expect Putin’s actions to embolden them. It already has if you read what Trump and others are saying.
Yesterday, we stepped into a whole new era that we are not going to like. And the democratically-aligned everywhere are going to have to fight the authoritarian juggernaut both at home and abroad.
Today is a dark day for Europe and the rest of the world. Putin is a petty tyrant - and like all tyrants, is threatened by freedom and democracy. May God bless, protect and fortify Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
I encourage everyone to call their senators and representative to support crippling sanctions against Russia as well as Putin’s friends parking money and assets in the West. Furthermore, I suggest asking for gas tax reliefs to help offset the price hikes.
I very seldom, if ever, comment on Tucker Carlson. In fact, some time ago Charlie published a letter I'd sent to Mail Bag ( well before the comments section was up & running) saying pretty much that, while I understood the necessity of understanding what a powerful mouthpiece and enabler Fox News in general and Carlson in particular were for the nefarious people and forces assaulting and undermining our democracy, I thought the subject of Carlson himself came up much too often, that we all knew what he was, and more attention should be paid to other people and things. I believe this is the first direct thing I've had to say about him since then: mea culpa.
Back then, as low of an opinion of this man as I had, I did not foresee that I would soon come to view him in a way much different than the one I did when I wrote that letter: a sleazy snake oil salesman plying his trade in a squalid carnival show for the show's and his own financial gain, and to feed his voracious and pathetic need for celebrity and self-importance. Alex Jones with a bigger bullhorn, an enemy of this country in a metaphorical sense, but not by strict definition of the word. Words matter. And now the word is appropriate.
Tucker Carlson, and those who have espoused the same ideas and sentiments as him regarding Putin and the immoral debacle that is at this moment unfolding on the sovereign soil of the democratic nation Ukraine, have made their allegiances and loyalties clear. And they are clearly not only not bound to democracy and the rule of law - either international or domestic - they are not bound to this country itself beyond any ties that may benefit them personally. They are no longer only trading in nonsense, misinformation, lies and hate. They are declaring themselves aligned with a hostile foreign power, one that might do the same harms to us as those being done in earnest to a smaller, weaker democracy, if it were to fit Putin's purpose and he thought he could get away with it. They are not traitors by strict definition. But they are betrayers of the country that, through its noble laws and until now liberal culture, affords them the right to be snake oil salesmen in the marketplace of speech and ideas without having to answer for it from a prison cell. Or worse. And they have now crossed the metaphorical line. What they are doing now is aiding and abetting not an adversary of this country, but a clear and all-but-formally-declared enemy, which is what Putin and Putin's Russia are. They give comfort through their praise, and enablement through their continued promotion of division within the very house in which they prosper. The fact that Mr. Carlson or the rest of his ilk have not picked up a gun and committed and outright act of violence against that house only mitigates his fitness for the application of the word enemy by a legal degree, not a moral one.
Is Tucker Carlson an American? Sadly, yes. An American who is an enemy of the very country that gives him the right to be called one, and to enjoy the freedoms and liberties that that hallowed name bestows. He is the worst and perhaps most dangerous kind of enemy we face...the one within, the one hiding in plain sight, untouchable by anything other than his own conscience.
I am very much against 'us or them' framing in most cases, because in my view, it is rarely helpful. However, we have reached I think, a time for choosing. In my view, whatever the views of the pro-putin set were before, there is now a real cost to pushing their narrative. If they simply did so because there were no stakes, because it would hurt their domestic enemies, then so be it, but that time has ended. It is now, in my view, impossible to be both pro-america and pro-putin.
An enemy now threatens everything America has built. Not the enemies we were told of in the past, like the middle eastern terrorist groups. Not like Iran or North Korea. A real enemy who threatens every single thing that allows America to have real prosperity in the world. It threatens our livelihoods, if not our lives. It threatens everything that has allowed America to be great in the last century.
Whatever one's words were before, what matters is their words now. I would accept those that repented, admit they were wrong, admit that they now support America. It is, as I said, a time for choosing. Those that continue to support Putin are supporting the destruction of America itself, no less than the Taliban did.
Indeed, I believe we must bring down the hammer of patriotism upon those who would side against America, the same way conservatives often wrongly did against liberals after 9/11. And there wasn't a political party cheering on the Taliban back then the way there is for Putin now. Let them feel the sting of shame for their anti-American fervor.
But for Democrats, it is imperative that they speak plainly and clearly. I have argued here before that plain talk is required of our leaders now, not rhetoric. And every Democratic leader, from Biden on down, needs to explain and argue that Putin threatens not just American prosperity but American lives. He threatens everything Americans hold dear, and he threatens their economic prosperity. Those that support him support the destruction of the very systems that made America great.
However, I think the greatest transformation will be on the European continent. The EU will need to have a military force if it is to survive. It cannot survive with a bunch of different ones, though those will be needed too. The Baltics, the Scandinavians, the Poles, the Romanians; all will need far greater military presences.
Because Putin struck not just from his own borders but from Belarus. And that means all of Europe is now threatened.
It is, I think, a time for choosing. This is not the first time someone has pushed the world like this, and it will not be the last. To quote the Americans who faced the first wave of British soldiers during the war for independence, and who themselves were quoting the book of Job: 'thus far shalt thou go, and no further.'
I am not swayed by 'never again.' I am swayed by 'no more.'
T. Swanson T.V. Dinners Carlson, still has not heard a dis of himself from Potentate Putin, so therefore, there is no reason to condemn the Commie for attacking an independent democracy.
As expected, the self-centered, narcissistic nilhist will play both sides for his own advantage, knowing full well he'll never have to pay the price for bamboozling the boobwazie.
Just finished a book about the French Resistance in WW2. In it was a line by one of the leaders stating that he never had as much pleasure in killing someone than in slowing murdering a Frenchman who actively helped the Gestapo.
Can you imagine the level of "squaker's disease" Carlson would have when a real tough guy slapped him around while holding him by his bow tie?
I cannot stress enough how many Javelin rockets and launchers need to get sent to Ukraine TODAY. Raytheon and Lockheed need to start cranking them out under blank check federal purchasing conditions and then we need to send them out AFAHP.
This is a clear example of why Trump was a threat to our national security, not only while president, but also post-presidency. He needs to keep his mouth shut, but that won't happen until he's either in a cell or six feet under.
First, he makes some idiotic remark to Ingraham about our southern border, listing highly specific details (that he made up) such as 3 million people crossing the southern border from 129 different countries, and in the same breath says we have no idea what's happening. If we know they're coming from 129 different countries, doesn't it sound like we might know what's happening?
Then, when he rebukes Ingraham for saying Americans were making an amphibious attack, saying that should be secret and not broadcast on television, she corrects Trump and says that's not what she said. Then Trump says, well, that will be next (didn't you just tell Ingraham not to say what you just said?).
This is positively infuriating. As a former president, Trump still has access to classified information. Intelligence reports even, should he wish to access them. And he gets on national tv talking about secret missions that cable news pundits shouldn't have access to, and even after that pundit tries to change the subject, Trump doubles down and says "Well, the assault is coming anyway." The Bulwark has made it very clear that they're just blaring Fox News's prime time propaganda line up on Russia State tv, so Russia is not only seeing this, but studying this.
And it's just a reminder that Trump is excessively venal, he's about to be stripped of any access to bank loans because his businesses are thoroughly corrupt, and he has access to very sensitive state secrets if he chooses to indulge himself. One of the commentators on Beg To Differ, I think Linda Chavez, smartly pointed out on a recent episode that she was pretty certain Trump stole all of those White House documents and brought them to Maralago so he could sell them, and I can't think of why she would be wrong. This menace has access to a treasure trove of sensitive information, zero scruples, an insatiable appetite for money, and connections with very generous potential buyers.
My god Charlie… Now I know why GOP senators and Congress members visited Russia in 2017. The GOP is now anti-American.
Chilling but brave comments by Ukraine, I only hope this can be resolved without too much blood shed. the Western world can not sit by and watch this for much longer without taking military action, sanctions won't stop it.
Perhaps Reagan’s deals with the Russians in the late 80s only worked because the USSR was on its last breath, in the wake of the arms race, SDI, and internal decay. And maybe we shouldn’t have relaxed so much based on agreements which now Moscow has shown they are ready to tear up.
Seems Caspar Weinberger’s unceasingly hawkish views have been proven correct- and we never should’ve let up on them
He said NEVER trust Moscow on anything, and was chased out of the administration for it by Nancy R and George Schultz.
Now I really can’t think of a reason why we should view the Putin regime any differently than Pyongyang- there’s no such thing as a binding contract with them, unless you’ve got a gun to their head
The anti-anti-authoritarian nonsense out of the nationalist/populist MAGA cult is going to be off the charts today. Can't wait to hear how everything is the fault of NeverTrump... <shakes head, adds bourbon to coffee, prays for the people of Ukraine>
People underestimate three reasons why the right has morphed on Russia. First, once communism went away, Russia = atheist went away and the Christian right is very pro-Putin because Putin uses the Russian Orthodox Church as a cloak to trumpet his pro-religious credentials (even though as a person he is far from Christian. Second, Putin does not like any dissention and has cracked down on "the gays", which the American Christian right not only loves, but actually advocated for in Moscow. Third, the right has always been very drawn to rugged men and Putin presents himself this way (there is a book about the American religious right and John Wayne that makes this point quite well).
How so many people on the Right support Russia on this is incomprehensible; Ukraine, for all it's problems, is basically a free and open society, whereas Russia is an authoritarian state par excellence. But I suppose the Right sees Russian as a model for the USA? If Trump gets back in power, he will withdrawl from Nato and Russia will seek to dominate Europe even mnore.
Thank you for this, Charlie. As I’m sure you agree, this is the most menacing development globally since the end of WWII. I take Putin at his word that he is ready to respond to countries getting in the way of his invasion of Ukraine. He said:
"Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so, to create threats for our country, for our people, should know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences that you have never experienced in your history.“
If Putin decides to escalate this conflict in response to sanctions or whatever excuses he devises, the difference between today and prior eras is that he can disrupt communications and infrastructure and land missiles in cities all across Europe in a matter of minutes. And, speaking of “consequences that you have never experienced in your history,” Putin can also hit the US with the same, and now can also hit New York or DC, or Boston with supersonic conventional missiles that there are simply no defenses against.
We in the US are used to being too far away from Europe or most any flashpoints to suffer harm to our homeland. This no longer applies. Putin has become unhinged. Don’t think he wouldn’t like an excuse to cause blackouts and bring down IT and information systems throughout the US and send a missile or two into the US and watch the America people panic.
Our homegrown authoritarians are on Putin’s side in this. Expect Putin’s actions to embolden them. It already has if you read what Trump and others are saying.
Yesterday, we stepped into a whole new era that we are not going to like. And the democratically-aligned everywhere are going to have to fight the authoritarian juggernaut both at home and abroad.
Today is a dark day for Europe and the rest of the world. Putin is a petty tyrant - and like all tyrants, is threatened by freedom and democracy. May God bless, protect and fortify Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
I encourage everyone to call their senators and representative to support crippling sanctions against Russia as well as Putin’s friends parking money and assets in the West. Furthermore, I suggest asking for gas tax reliefs to help offset the price hikes.
I very seldom, if ever, comment on Tucker Carlson. In fact, some time ago Charlie published a letter I'd sent to Mail Bag ( well before the comments section was up & running) saying pretty much that, while I understood the necessity of understanding what a powerful mouthpiece and enabler Fox News in general and Carlson in particular were for the nefarious people and forces assaulting and undermining our democracy, I thought the subject of Carlson himself came up much too often, that we all knew what he was, and more attention should be paid to other people and things. I believe this is the first direct thing I've had to say about him since then: mea culpa.
Back then, as low of an opinion of this man as I had, I did not foresee that I would soon come to view him in a way much different than the one I did when I wrote that letter: a sleazy snake oil salesman plying his trade in a squalid carnival show for the show's and his own financial gain, and to feed his voracious and pathetic need for celebrity and self-importance. Alex Jones with a bigger bullhorn, an enemy of this country in a metaphorical sense, but not by strict definition of the word. Words matter. And now the word is appropriate.
Tucker Carlson, and those who have espoused the same ideas and sentiments as him regarding Putin and the immoral debacle that is at this moment unfolding on the sovereign soil of the democratic nation Ukraine, have made their allegiances and loyalties clear. And they are clearly not only not bound to democracy and the rule of law - either international or domestic - they are not bound to this country itself beyond any ties that may benefit them personally. They are no longer only trading in nonsense, misinformation, lies and hate. They are declaring themselves aligned with a hostile foreign power, one that might do the same harms to us as those being done in earnest to a smaller, weaker democracy, if it were to fit Putin's purpose and he thought he could get away with it. They are not traitors by strict definition. But they are betrayers of the country that, through its noble laws and until now liberal culture, affords them the right to be snake oil salesmen in the marketplace of speech and ideas without having to answer for it from a prison cell. Or worse. And they have now crossed the metaphorical line. What they are doing now is aiding and abetting not an adversary of this country, but a clear and all-but-formally-declared enemy, which is what Putin and Putin's Russia are. They give comfort through their praise, and enablement through their continued promotion of division within the very house in which they prosper. The fact that Mr. Carlson or the rest of his ilk have not picked up a gun and committed and outright act of violence against that house only mitigates his fitness for the application of the word enemy by a legal degree, not a moral one.
Is Tucker Carlson an American? Sadly, yes. An American who is an enemy of the very country that gives him the right to be called one, and to enjoy the freedoms and liberties that that hallowed name bestows. He is the worst and perhaps most dangerous kind of enemy we face...the one within, the one hiding in plain sight, untouchable by anything other than his own conscience.
There is nothing more glorious than a psychopathic poodle licking the boots of a psychopathic lizard.
Just ask MAGA.
I am very much against 'us or them' framing in most cases, because in my view, it is rarely helpful. However, we have reached I think, a time for choosing. In my view, whatever the views of the pro-putin set were before, there is now a real cost to pushing their narrative. If they simply did so because there were no stakes, because it would hurt their domestic enemies, then so be it, but that time has ended. It is now, in my view, impossible to be both pro-america and pro-putin.
An enemy now threatens everything America has built. Not the enemies we were told of in the past, like the middle eastern terrorist groups. Not like Iran or North Korea. A real enemy who threatens every single thing that allows America to have real prosperity in the world. It threatens our livelihoods, if not our lives. It threatens everything that has allowed America to be great in the last century.
Whatever one's words were before, what matters is their words now. I would accept those that repented, admit they were wrong, admit that they now support America. It is, as I said, a time for choosing. Those that continue to support Putin are supporting the destruction of America itself, no less than the Taliban did.
Indeed, I believe we must bring down the hammer of patriotism upon those who would side against America, the same way conservatives often wrongly did against liberals after 9/11. And there wasn't a political party cheering on the Taliban back then the way there is for Putin now. Let them feel the sting of shame for their anti-American fervor.
But for Democrats, it is imperative that they speak plainly and clearly. I have argued here before that plain talk is required of our leaders now, not rhetoric. And every Democratic leader, from Biden on down, needs to explain and argue that Putin threatens not just American prosperity but American lives. He threatens everything Americans hold dear, and he threatens their economic prosperity. Those that support him support the destruction of the very systems that made America great.
However, I think the greatest transformation will be on the European continent. The EU will need to have a military force if it is to survive. It cannot survive with a bunch of different ones, though those will be needed too. The Baltics, the Scandinavians, the Poles, the Romanians; all will need far greater military presences.
Because Putin struck not just from his own borders but from Belarus. And that means all of Europe is now threatened.
It is, I think, a time for choosing. This is not the first time someone has pushed the world like this, and it will not be the last. To quote the Americans who faced the first wave of British soldiers during the war for independence, and who themselves were quoting the book of Job: 'thus far shalt thou go, and no further.'
I am not swayed by 'never again.' I am swayed by 'no more.'
Why hasn't anyone examined the possibility that [T]ucker Carlson is being paid (quietly, offshore) for his pro-Russia, pro-Putin rubbish.
T. Swanson T.V. Dinners Carlson, still has not heard a dis of himself from Potentate Putin, so therefore, there is no reason to condemn the Commie for attacking an independent democracy.
As expected, the self-centered, narcissistic nilhist will play both sides for his own advantage, knowing full well he'll never have to pay the price for bamboozling the boobwazie.
Just finished a book about the French Resistance in WW2. In it was a line by one of the leaders stating that he never had as much pleasure in killing someone than in slowing murdering a Frenchman who actively helped the Gestapo.
Can you imagine the level of "squaker's disease" Carlson would have when a real tough guy slapped him around while holding him by his bow tie?