Republicans are on the horns of a dilemma

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2022/03/republicans-are-on-horns-of-dilemma.html

Ukraine was at the center of former President 45's first impeachment. How soon we forget? Americans, for the most part, are bored with geography, politics and history. That's why our constitutional principles are slipping out of our hands. Former President 45 withheld money appropriated by Congress for Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression to bribe President Zelensky into helping him dig up dirt on Joe Biden. There was no dirt, as was discovered in the investigation, but the illegal act of withholding money appropriated by Congress was a crime for which Forty-Five was impeached, and should have been convicted.

It has turned out to be a much bigger crime, with much more dire consequences, that it appeared to be at the time.

So the Republicans are also now caught between a swell of public opinion on the side of Ukraine and against Russia, whose dictator has been lauded and praised by none other than President Pushover himself, former 45. What they are hoping is that a majority of Americans are ignorant, uneducated, and have very short memories and will forget that former President 45 has been a frequent contributor to Ukraine's woes, and is a supporter of the dictator, and his values, that is now attacking them without provocation.

This one won't get walked back.

[LaMouffette]

1. I bet I know how they will try to apologize for Traitor Trump: They'll say Trump had no idea that

Putin was so bad! Heck, they'll say, NOBODY knew Putin was capable of such atrocities!

God, how I hate their self-serving contortions and corruption.

[Harker]

7. "NOBODY could've seen that coming!"

I think you're right on the money.

Speaking of money... sanctioning Russian banks and oligarchs is going to put a huge squeeze on Trumpsky. As Eric Trumpsky reportedly said, they don't rely on American banks...

[LaMouffette]

12. I hope the sanctions somehow lead to indicting Trump for his Russian money laundering.

[Harker]

14. That would be a pleasant little ray of light in all this horror...

and an ironic one, too.

The international spotlight is going to be lighting up a lot of dark little corners, I think.

[world wide wally]

2. I'm not so sure TFG held up the support just to get dirt on Biden.

I think he was acting in the best interests of Putin. (Under orders, of course)

[Harker]

5. +33.

Help Putin, get something of personal value. His version of a big win.

He probably hadn't heard of President Zelensky and couldn't find Ukraine on a map until he tried to strongarm him. "I just need to find..."

[Ray Bruns]

6. Donald Trump couldn't find Ukraine on a map of Ukraine

[Harker]

8. "Kiev... is that where the chickens come from?" n/t

[RussBLib]

10. and let's remember how Trump bowed to Putin in 2016

to water down the language of supplying "lethal defense" weaponry to Ukraine to just providing assistance in the GOP platform.

Doing Putin's bidding since at least 2016. Probably much earlier than that

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/07/18/trump-deferring-to-putin-deleted-gop-platforms-call-to-supply-ukraine-with-lethal-defensive-weapons/

[lees1975]

11. What was all that conversation about "Quid Pro Quo"?

He owed a debt for Putin helping him win the 2016 election.

[lagomorph777]

15. Exactly. Putin put him up to the scheme; convinced him it'd be great for his campaign.

But the real goal was to hurt Ukraine.

Ukraine is the one single reason that Putin installed Trump in 2016 and tried to keep him in power in 2020.

Everything Trump did, goes back to supporting Putin's Ukraine plot. Trying to break up NATO, extorting Ukraine, praising Putin: it's all part of the same plot. My guess is that Trump knew perfectly well he was committing crimes, but never saw the big picture. But I could be wrong.

[Harker]

3. I'm sure Trumpsky is uneasy about this, as are all those whose revenue flow is being disrupted

by sanctions.

There's a multifarious lesson in here somewhere about hitching your fortune to a dangerous, ignorant demagogue.

[NCjack]

4. The only way to deliver this info to the MAGAts is a county & western song.

[Harker]

9. The rhymes are really popping into my mind now. n/t

[lagomorph777]

16. Do share!

[Harker]

17. You write the tune, and I'll get cracking!

Putin shootin', I believe in Kiev, prayin' for Ukraine.

Just bits.

[lagomorph777]

18. Hmm, unless you can put lyrics to space ambient, I'm not your composer...

But I can toss in a few rhymes:

rootin' fer Pootin
heave 'em outta Kyiv
breaker, breaker, we got ourselves a convoy.... ...ahhhh, shitsky.
MiGs versus MiGs full of pigs
suck mah Sukhoi
I was towin' a tank, rollin' down the road, took it away from Putin's toad...

[Harker]

19. Well, you got me to listen to a piece.

It was reminiscent of some of Vangelis's music for "Bladerunner" (I won't assume it to be typical), and it'll be a challenge til I find the beat...

I think we have a hit on our hands. Space ambient with occasional, disjointed voiceovers of spoken lines in various voices.

[lagomorph777]

20. Ha! I was joking, but vocal samples are sometimes used...

and might just work!



But, yeah, good luck finding a beat. We work hard to avoid making a beat.

[Harker]

21. It's there somewhere...

in a pulsar... or in the steady spinning of a cold, cratered world.

[lagomorph777]

22. Dude.

That's beautiful!

Genuinely poetic. Compactly expressing a place, a state of mind, an emotional wilderness.

[Harker]

24. Space is where it's at.

I have a sense of my fixed-form poems being captured in an uncharted, sweeping elliptical orbit about a distant, unnamed ice giant.

[lagomorph777]

25. Whhhooooosshh!

[Harker]

26. Thanks for the inspiration!

I've been suffering from a thirty year lack of motivation on my opera about Manfred von Richthofen (sung in German, French, English, and Australian) and I've gone nowhere turning Hermann Hesse's "Knulp" into an operetta, aside from being sure the voice of the god will be a mezzo soprano.

I never get anywhere on big ideas.

[lagomorph777]

13. Why do so many use the term "bribe" to describe extortion?

It's infuriating corruption of the language to water down the crime.

[Skittles]

23. well-said

I still can't get over how fucking juvenile "unfriended" sounds.