Trump Job Approval
| Pollsters wrong in 2024: | 42.0 / 55.1 | -13.0 |
| Pollsters right in 2024: | 46.2 / 51.0 | -4.8 |
 | GOP | DEM |
| Democrats +3 | 216 | 219 |
Trump Job Approval
| Pollsters wrong in 2024: | 42.0 / 55.1 | -13.0 |
| Pollsters right in 2024: | 46.2 / 51.0 | -4.8 |
| GOP | DEM |
| Democrats +3 | 216 | 219 |
The Hedgehog Report - Phoenix Edition 
83 responses to “Friday Night!”
First!
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I’m still feeling Trumpamania! Gotta love Hulk Hogan.
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I guess I have to call Vic and tell him to claim the first.
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This RNC convention reminded me of the DNC convention in 1996 when they knew Clinton was going to win reelection in a landslide. One memorable image from ’96 was everyone on the floor dancing the Macarena. I was glad to see that type of energy on the Republican side.
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Glad it’s our side and we don’t have the demented goi g/staying saga.
Pass the popcorn
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bitter. Sorry got the boys for first time in two weeks so was with the youngest as he tried on his new Kane jersey
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What sport? Soccer? Baseball?
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Patrick Kane from the NHL?
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The grifter now wants a peace deal.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський
@ZelenskyyUa
I spoke with
@realDonaldTrump
to congratulate him on the Republican nomination and condemn the shocking assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. I wished him strength and absolute safety in the future. I noted the vital bipartisan and bicameral American support for protecting our nation’s freedom and independence. Ukraine will always be grateful to the United States for its help in strengthening our ability to resist Russian terror. Russian attacks on our cities and villages continue every day. We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting.
·
630K Views
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“Mike, if I may ask a personal question, when was this? Hopefully not the commuter train incident back in the 90s, that was awful. Glad you’re around and overcame it!”
GF, at 10:01PM on the night of June 19th, 2020, as I was locking up the gates at my business, a (stolen) car pulled up, young kid jumped out, and then after some dancing on one side of my car while he was on the other side, i dove back into my car to drive away, he stepped back, spread his legs and pointed his weapon with 2 hands, and fired into my windshield. (Cops said they thought gun fired twice, as they saw 2 flashes on recording video, but we never found a 2nd bullet). The shot went through windshield and into my right chest, about 2 inches above and to the right of my nipple. Windshield must have blunted force of bullet, or it was a low caliber (assuming here, not much knowledge of firearms), as it just penetrated the skin and lodged up against the ribs(? haven’t looked at hospital records in a while).
I then proceeded to take off in the car and drove myself to the hospital, calling my nephew and alerting him that I had been shot…..that was an interesting call. Also called 911, asking if they could direct me to the nearest hospital, which I ended up finding while still trying to figure out where I was….another interesting call.
No lasting affects, except in some ways it has enhanced my own life, with my wife, and with my extended family/friends in many ways. We were always close, but that night really united all of us in many different ways.
Memorable night, to say the least, and I found my reactions this past week to seeing Trump get shot quite different from others around me. Also, watching Trump last night, while thinking that the speech was terrible (in his Trumpian way), was somewhat enthralled with his delivery and how he has acted the last week. He definitely was changed by that attempt on his life.
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Who here remembers the years when we would declare “Frist!” for the initial post?
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I saw Jan’s post at the end of the last thread. More nonsense and pretending that Putin ordered the brutal invasion of Ukraine because of the UK and the U.S. No. Putin ordered the invasion because he wanted to annex Ukraine by installing a puppet government in Kiyv. No other reason. If he didn’t want to invade Ukraine, the U.S. and UK could not make him.
I want Trump/Vance to win but their victory will further cement the isolationist hold on the party. It is hard to believe that this used to be Reagan’s party.
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I left it ambiguous to see where yall went.
harry Kane. Bayern Munich
as much as I have tried to influence him liking baseball and hockey he loves loves loves soccer. He’s trying out for the Barca academy in a couple weeks…
btw he was asking if there were going to be any scouts at his third grade games lmao
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Grifter is Putina’s term of contempt for somebody who refuses to bow to a KGB thug and war criminal.
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Maybe there will be. The Philadelphia Union just had a 14 year old play in a game.
Good for him but that just reinforces my negative attitude towards soccer. If a 14 year old can play with adults, it doesn’t say much for the adults.
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NYCmike what a harrowing story. Few go thru those kind of circumstances. I do believe though when one’s life is on the line, stuff changes – little stuff becomes just that, little.
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“I’ll take the bait. Trump is a moron on Ukraine. Vance is worse. Trump will push for Ukraine to surrender and call it compromise.”
Evidence for this statement? Jan 20, 2017-Jan 20, 2021 saw Ukraine and Putin live peacefully as neighbors…..wonder why that was. I guess we should follow the moron’s way of governing.
As for the situation if Trump-Vance are elected, I expect Trump to deal with the reality of the situation, as opposed to wanting to return it to Trump-era conditions….unless, of course, Trump can find a negotiating angle to make Putin withdraw to 2021 borders.
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Vic, I’ll never be a soccer fan, but there must be something good about the sport for it to be so popular worldwide. It’s great your little guy has a passion for it.
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“Who here remembers the years when we would declare “Frist!” for the initial post?”
-I just did it on one of the previous threads, but believe I missed grabbing the initial post to you
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Ted Lasso was a great show. Soccer was the vehicle with which they got their message thru.
Nate The Great was a tactical genius.
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“NYCmike what a harrowing story.”
-It was a harrowing couple of minutes, thankfully. The older I get, dealing with aging seems to be a lot more challenging.
Respect your elders was great advice from my parents
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I should watch Ted Lasso. I keep hearing good things about it.
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The word ONLY should have been included before harrowing.
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Loved the show, Jeff. Couple of woke/political elements here and there, but overall recommend it.
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Cheers to all! Enjoy the weekend!
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Checkers requires more eye-hand coordination than soccer.
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Trump did not prevent Putin from invading Ukraine any more than he prevented Putin from invading Bermuda or Lichtenstein. Putin moved when he was ready and Zelensky would not back down.
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The more the left demonizes Vance, the more I think he has enough opposite qualities of the left to be a great pick. Regarding Bitter’s and Vic’s disdain for his “isolationist” positions, I personally think he is more pro-US than being a pure isolationist.
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Not opposing Russian aggression is not being Pro-US.
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Good evening, BL. I am more optimistic that Trump will get a peace deal in Ukraine that secures their sovereignty. I do think that Putin will get more than zero territory. But it will be less than current occupied territory. There’s nothing I can do to affect it; it’s just what I think will happen.
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“Also, Senator Heimlich (sp.”
I hear Sen. “Heinlich’s maneuver” was pre planned.
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I think that if Trump is elected that he will stop all military aid to Ukraine. Zelensky and any Ukrainians who fought back will be executed or imprisoned. Jan and Tina will be fine with it. That’s my prediction.
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Russian expansion and dead Ukrainians are Pro-American.
– Cult Member
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Basically, as I have written here for a year or so- the grifter will sign the same deal that the slob pm blocked
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BL, I pray that Ukraine can expel the Russians just with the equipment we send them, but I don’t think they can. The manpower situation is much more in Russia’s favor. No, I am not OK with that.
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NYCMike,
What a scary event for you. So glad it was not worse.
******************************
I have never been shot. I have had the experience of hearing a bullet whiz by me when I was about 6 or 7 yrs. old and take a chunk out of the chimney on our house about 5 feet from me. My brother and pal had put .22 bullets in the burn barrel as an experiment.
_________________
I have, however had a weapon leveled on me three different times that I am sure of:
First, 1968 police shotgun during a panty raid in college (seeing the business end of the shotgun worked, in that I quickly did a 180 and left the area).
Second,1971 drunk guy and a hunting rifle at a high school evening event I was supervising teacher (I told him I would give him all the money (hundreds of $$ in mostly small bills) but I had to count it first…(and during the counting his two buddies were able to grab him and the gun and get him out of there in a hurry).
Third, 1973 three young men and a rifle when they broke into our hotel room at 4 a.m. and robbed us on last night of honeymoon in Bahamas. (we both physically unharmed, but they got $14 and my college class ring. I reasoned with them that they could take the airline tickets but it wouldn’t do them any good, Same with the Travelers’ checks).
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How could Boris Johnson prevent Ukraine and Russia from making a deal before the invasion?
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Putin was a victim forced to order an invasion against his will.
– Cult Member
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Jan and Putina are ok with it.
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The free passers will be upset with thr grifter
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https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4651112-a-peace-deal-between-russia-and-ukraine-was-possible-two-years-ago-and-still-is-today/#:~:text=The%20two%20sides%20entered%20negotiations,were%20progressing%20in%20that%20direction.
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Ted Lasso was a great show adn really worth watching. I resisted it for such a long time, and then when I watched it I loved it and hated it only lasted three seasons. Season 1 is hilarious and heartfelt. Season 2 gets a bit more serious, but still lighthearted. Season 3 goes full on woke, and less funny…but still manages to be just as great, but in a different way. You vested in the characters by then, and you get to see them differently.
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“Trump did not prevent Putin from invading Ukraine any more than he prevented Putin from invading Bermuda or Lichtenstein. Putin moved when he was ready and Zelensky would not back down.”
-Right, and Iran released the hostages on the date they had originally planned to, 444 days after they had taken them hostage. That was the plan all along, they just didn’t tell Ted Koppell and the Nightline Crew.
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I am glad Zelensky talked to Trump and posted about it. I do believe he, like most outside the US, thinks Trump will win, and I can tell you first hand, a lot of foreigners, especially in Middle East and Africa, want Trump to win. They HATE Biden there.
I think they will do a peace deal. Ukraine will give up Donbass, but the war will end, and the West will chip in billions to rebuild it…trust me, its already in the works. Ukraine won’t join NATO, but will have a condition as part of the peace plan that if Russia ever invades again they get instant membership, with all its perks. Russia won’t be back.
No one will like that deal, and that’s how you know it will be a good one.
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“Season 3 goes full on woke, and less funny…but still manages to be just as great, but in a different way. You vested in the characters by then, and you get to see them differently.”
-Heh! I didn’t want to give a totally honest appraisal of that season, as I figured some may not mind it. Thankfully, the last 4 or 5 episodes of that season were much better than the beginning. Holy Guacamole!
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Ok, that’s it for good this time! Cheers, and enjoy the weekend!
Trump-Vance2024! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT ! ! !
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Zzzzzzzz
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Putina thinks Putin is the victim here. Sad.
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More Putin is the Victim nonsense from the retired Federal employee.
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They had a deal in 2022, but Boris the slob phuqed it up.
I predicted that the grifter would again want a peace deal
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And shh, don’t tell the free passers,but the “new deal” Will be worse than the 2022 deal.
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Democrat Schoen says the erection is over with.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-did-something-hes-never-done-before-rnc-speech-now-election-may-already-over
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There was no deal because Putin wanted to invade. Why should Ukraine have to agree to the size of its military and weapons systems set by Putin?
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Putina loves her Putin talking points.
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Vic, I think the deal you describe will be within one standard deviation of the final outcome.
Bitter will rage that the only just outcome is Russia getting zero square feet and Putin in jail. Conservatives often accuse liberals of living in an alternate reality, and Bitter does that in this case.
It’s not possible for Big Z to throw Russia completely out of Ukraine without American troops and pilots. He claims he doesn’t support that, but….
Chicon
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Appeasement of Putin is good.
-Putina
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”No one will like that deal, and that’s how you know it will be a good one.”
I like what Vic laid out except for the “west chipping in billions more to rebuild” Ukraine. I think if Trump is president he will expect the EU and everyone else to chip in, paying their fair share.
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215 901-2041
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The 2025 deal will be worse for the grifter than the 2022 pence deal.
The grifter failed here by listening to Boris the slob.
With that said, poot pooot made no move on Ukraine when trump was in office. Perhaps peace through strength and being predictably unpredictable worked.
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is that the number for 2 for 1 large pizza specials?
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*2022 peace deal.
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It’s telling how with a greater aspect of a Trump presidency people are easily talking about a peace plan, and not another aid package to lengthen the war.
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If you think about it, the grifter destroyed dementeds presidency.
if he takes the 2022 deal, no war. No war = no inflation= no real wage decline = no sheotty economy,
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No 28 percent increase in food prices.
no high vehicle and rents and home prices.
oh well.
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On another note, blue anon is confusing.
First Trump “faked” the assassination attempt and faked his injury.
Now, he has “brain damage
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Call if you want. I always answer.
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“Lengthen Putin’s illegal and brutal war against Ukrainians.”
Fixed it.
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You mean if Ukraine surrendered without a shot? Jan and Putina claim they want America to be strong but hate any country that is strong against Putin.
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Anyone who say JD Vance is an isolationist is either a liar or just plain ignorant of his views. Vance supports Israel and Taiwan. What Vance doesn’t support is forever wars. Wars that will drain our resources and put us in a desperate situation, if we need to defend others allies! Instead of listening to other people opinions on Vance’s foreign policy; lets look at what he has actually said!
“What do we do in Israel? And question number two is what do we do about Ukraine? I sort of come down on very opposite sides of these particular questions. I’m supportive of Israel and their war against Hamas. I certainly admire the Ukrainians who are fighting against Russia, but I do not think that it is in America’s interest to continue to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine. So why are these two things different? Well, there are a few things. There are a few things. It’s sort of weird that this town assumes that Israel and Ukraine are exactly the same. They’re not, of course, and I think it’s important to analyze them in separate buckets. And importantly, I think those of us who are pro-Israel have to wake up to a new reality. You see this, the consequences of it on college campuses. You see this in the way in which young people think about these different parts of the world and what America’s response should be to them. And it’s that even if they’re pro-Israel, they’re sick of the old arguments, right? The slogans don’t work anymore, ladies and gentlemen. If we’re going to support Israel, as I think that we should, we have to articulate a reason why it’s in our best interest. If we’re going to support the Ukrainians, as I think we’ve done again, I think we should stop supporting the Ukrainian conflict. I think that we have to, if you want to articulate why I’m wrong, you have to start to say, this is why this is in America’s best interest. There are a few things, I think, that are very distinct about Israel. And when I talk about the moral intuitions of the middle class, why do Americans care about Israel? I think there are all these arguments you could make, and some of them are true, and some of them are false, and some of them are fake. But look, a big part of the reason why Americans care about Israel is because we are still the largest Christian-majority country in the world, which means that a majority of citizens of this country think that their savior, and I count myself a Christian, was born, died, and resurrected in that narrow little strip of territory off the Mediterranean. The idea that there is ever going to be an American foreign policy that doesn’t care a lot about that slice of the world is preposterous because of who Americans are. Now contrast that with the moral intuition that has most underlined American foreign policy in the last 20 years, this idea that it is in our distinct interest to spread democracy all over the world. Well, I actually don’t think that that even holds a little bit of water. Was it in our interest to spread democracy to Iraq, where not only did a lot of Americans and a lot of other people die needlessly, but then we created a proxy of Iran in the Middle East? It’s preposterous. And not only that, not only did we create a proxy of Iran in the Middle East at the cost of thousands of American lives, we also precipitated the genocide of one of the oldest Christian communities in the entire world. Now we’re talking about moral intuitions, and I think we have to influence our foreign policy objectives here. If you had told the American people, if George W. Bush had stood before the American people in 2003 and said, hey guys, we’re going to go to war not to eradicate weapons of mass destruction or to spread democracy, we’re going to go to war to create a regional proxy for Iran and to slaughter over a million historical Christians. Not that they will be slaughtered at our hands, but our actions will lead to the genocide of the historical Christian community. I don’t think Americans would have supported it. And frankly, if you look at polling back in 2003, most Americans didn’t care about whether Iraq was a democracy or not. The main reason that the American people supported the war in Iraq in the beginning was because they thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that would be used against our citizens. There was actually a very realist case made for the Iraq war. It was just wrong. And now I think hopefully all of us recognize that it was wrong. But my point is, you can’t totally divorce the moral apparatus here, even in a realist foreign policy. Americans want their values reflected in the types of things that they do. And I think one of the best arguments that we should make against a lot of American involvement overseas is that it’s somehow, maybe because we’re careless, maybe it’s purely accidental, but we keep on leading to the death of old Christian communities all over the world. I think that’s a moral scandal. And I think most Americans, given they’re part of the Christian majority, would actually agree with that. It’s sort of weird to me that no one, even though Republicans are theoretically the Christian conservative party, that no one makes this argument that traditional neoconservative foreign policy keeps on leading to the genocide of Christians. But it does, which is one of many reasons why neoconservative foreign policy is strategically and morally stupid. So that’s one principle. That’s one way I apply the principle that our moral intuitions should be motivated by the actual moral views of middle-class Americans, is why don’t we stop genocide in historical Christian communities? That’s a basic thing we should be doing in our foreign policy. But let me just dive into this a little bit, because it’s not just, of course, the fact that Americans care about Israel for religious reasons. I think there actually is a hard-nosed strategic argument that we can make for why we should care about Israel too. Let me just make a couple of points on that topic. So first, Israel is one of the most dynamic, certainly on a per capita basis, one of the most dynamic and technologically advanced countries in the world. Dan Senor wrote about this in the book, The Startup Nation. And if you look at what Israel is doing just with the Iron Beam system, for example, this is a system that would allow America and our allies to actually achieve some parity with the people who are sending drones and rocket attacks and so forth. There is no way that we can long-term fight a missile defense battle against people if they’re paying one-tenth or one-one-hundredth for offensive weapons that we are paying for defensive weapons, and the Israelis are doing the most important work to actually give us missile defense parity. That’s a very important national security objective of the United States of America, and that’s something we’re working with one of the most innovative economies in the world to accomplish. There’s another reason, actually, motivated by my view that America can’t do everything, and that reason is quite simple. We have to sort of ask ourselves, what do we want out of our Israeli allies? And more importantly, what do we want out of all of our allies writ large? Do wewant clients who depend on us, who can’t do anything without us, or do we want real allies who can actually advance their interests on their own with America as playing a leadership role, but our allies actually doing something, too? So my biggest criticism of our approach in Ukraine is that it has no strategic end in sight, and it’s not leading anywhere that’s going to ultimately be good for our country. But the second biggest criticism I make about the war in Ukraine and our approach to it is that we are subsidizing the Europeans to do nothing. The Europeans are not carrying their fair share of the burden, especially when it comes in provision of weapons, and they’re deindustrializing their own country at the same time that they say that Putin must be defeated at all costs. If Putin must be defeated at all costs to our German friends, then stop deindustrializing your own country in the name of ridiculous green energy policy. But I actually think that Washington, at least current Washington leadership, really likes the fact that the Europeans are completely dependent on us. That’s not an alliance. These people aren’t increasingly allies. They are client states of the United States of America who do whatever we want them to do. Well, I think we have a real opportunity to ensure that Israel is an ally in the true sense that it’s going to pursue their interests, and sometimes those interests won’t totally overlap with the United States, and that’s totally reasonable, but they are fundamentally self-sufficient. And I think the way that we get there in Israel is actually by combining the Abraham Accords approach with the defeat of Hamas that gets us to a place where Israel and the Sunni nations can play a regional counterweight to Iran. Again, we don’t want a broader regional war. Wedon’t want to get involved in a broader regional war. The best way to do that is to ensure that Israel with the Sunni nations can actually police their own region of the world. And that allows us to spend less time and less resources on the Middle East and focus more on East Asia. In the same way that we want our own allies to do the job in Europe so that we can focus on East Asia, I think the same is true of the Sunni nations in Israel and the Middle East. We want to focus more on East Asia, so they’re going to have to pick up more of the regional security apparatus, but they can’t do that. The Israelis can’t do that unless they defeat Hamas. There’s an interesting thing, which is why we should be supporting them in the war to finish Hamas’s military capabilities. And one of the things that’s frankly reasonable that people say that I think that it’s wrong is, well, you can’t possibly defeat Hamas as an ideology. Well, you can’t defeat Islamic radicalism as an ideology, and it was stupid for us to build democracies in the Middle East to try, but you can defeat ISIS as a functioning military apparatus. You can defeat Al-Qaeda as a functioning military apparatus, and there is no way for the Abrahamic courts to take off, which allows us to step away from the Middle East unless Israel defeats Hamas as a functional military apparatus and build some real alliances with the Sunni states. That, to me, is the goal of American foreign policy in the Middle East, and that’s why we should be doing something much different, in my view, in Israel than we should be in Ukraine. Now, maybe you disagree with that. Happy to have that conversation, but that’s fundamentally how I think about this. How do we focus on East Asia? How do we allow the moral intuitions of America’s middle class to influence our own foreign policy instead of crazy things like spread democracy to every corner of the world? These are the ways that I think about that particular conflict and some of the principles that I have and how to apply them there. Let me say the second thing here, which is you cannot have a foreign policy for the middle class unless you actually have a strong economy at home. I don’t want to recapitulate or re-summarize all of the arguments that many of you have heard me made, but look, we allowed China to build its middle class off the backs of the American middle class. We actually promoted the creation of a Chinese super industrial economy. The crazy thing is, when the free traders never acknowledged this point in 2024, when we were making the argument in the 70s and the 80s that we should build China’s industrial economy, we were doing it explicitly with the knowledge that it would harm America’s middle class. Go back and read what they were writing in the 70s and the 80s, and they said this will harm America’s middle class. This will lead to a lot of unemployed steel workers and auto workers in Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania, but it will be worth it because we will turn the Chinese into a flowering democracy overseas. There’s that weird conceit that we have again, where again, if you ask the people in the heartland, the people that I represent, whether they care more about China becoming a democracy or whether they care more about the jobs that sustain their communities, we all know exactly what the answer is going to be, right? But now we find ourselves in a position where arguably, even today, China is the preeminent industrial power in the world. That cannot coexist with America having a foreign policy that’s good for the middle class, in my view. If we are not able to be self-reliant, if we can’t manufacture our own pharmaceuticals, our own munitions, the components that Americans rely on for their everyday life, then we are never going to be able to build the kind of middle class that we want in this country. Bob Lighthizer, the former Trade Representative of the Trump administration, and I hope a future Secretary of the Treasury or Commerce or something, Bob Lighthizer famously makes this example, which I’ve seen very directly in my own life in Silicon Valley. If you open up an iPhone, even today I believe, it will say, what? Designed in California, right? Buy a new iPhone, I believe it still says designed in California. Well, the implication, of course, is that if it was designed in California, it was manufactured somewhere else. Where was it manufactured? In Shenzhen, okay? One of the things that we’ve learned over the last 20 years is that as economies become better at manufacturing things, they start to become better at designing and technology development entirely. The Western conceit that you could separate the manufacturer of things from the technological innovation in those things is completely absurd and preposterous, and you see evidence of this today as the Chinese rapidly develop their own ability to manufacture chips. Why are they so good at manufacturing and designing new chip technologies? Because we allowed them to manufacture things like the iPhone for the last 20 years. And aside from the iPhone, a lot of other products even further back than 20 years ago. This was insanity. It was predictable, and yet here we are and we have to deal with it. And I don’t think, by the way, I think the neoconservative approach to China is sort of the dumbest of all possible solutions. They want the Chinese to manufacture all of our stuff, and they also want to go to war with China, okay? I’m serious. If you sort of look at a two-by-two, go to war with China, don’t go to war with China, let them make all of our stuff, don’t let them make all our stuff. Put me firmly in the category of, I don’t want to go to war with China, and I want to make more of our own stuff, okay? What really worries me about the China talk in America in 2024 is it’s been picked up by the neoconservatives who are just borrowing arguments that many of us have been making for close to a decade, and now they’re all real big China hawks, but they want the Chinese to make everything for us, okay? Well, that’s the dumbest of all possible options. I really don’t, as the father of three young children, I really don’t want to go to war with a country that makes all of our antibiotics when I’ve got three little kids at home. So for the neoconservatives, maybe pump the brakes for at least the next 10 years, right? But this is where we’re headed, ladies and gentlemen, if we don’t recognize that the most important component of foreign power for the middle class in this country starts right here at home. And if we have that industrial might, it’s going to make our enemies less likely to start conflicts. If we have that industrial might, our enemies can do less damage to us if they do start those conflicts. And if we have that industrial might, our own country is going to be a lot healthier and happier, completely aside from what we do in the area of foreign policy. So again, not a fulsome take on everything that I think about foreign policy, but I think hopefully illustrative of how I’m thinking about some of these issues and how I’d encourage some of you to think about these issues too. One, you can’t entirely divorce the moral dimension from foreign policy, but the morality we should be pursuing, if we pursue any at all, should be the morality of our own people. And two, the most important component of projecting power overseas is actually having a strong domestic manufacturing economy here at home. And let me just finish with one observation about how totally broken the Washington sense is on this and how their views on Ukraine and Israel are actually totally incompatible. I met with a representative of the Israeli government yesterday, and I don’t like to reveal confidences, but one of the things that was said explicitly that I’ve seen hinted at in news reports and elsewhere is that in January of 2023, when the Biden administration forced the Israelis to empty their munition stockpile and send it all to Ukraine, that actually, you can make a pretty good argument, prolonged the war in Gaza in service of prolonging the war in Ukraine. So if there’s a final argument here, it’s that we have to accept that there are trade-offs. America cannot manufacture enough weapons to support four different wars in four different corners of the world. We just can’t do it. We can’t do it in part because of the decisions made by my bipartisan colleagues over the last 40 years, but it’s the reality that we live in, which means that we have to pick and choose. We have to identify where our interests are most important, and we have to try to divert American foreign power to focus on those particular things. And this is why I think it is so important that for the next 30 or 40 years in a world of multi-polarity, look, China wasn’t built in a decade. It’s not going to be unbuilt in a decade, even if we wanted it to, we have to recognize that Chinese industrial power is here to stay. So what are we going to do in that world? I think, again, that world of multi-polarity, that means that we want the Israelis and the Sunnis to police their own region of the world. We want the Europeans to police their own region of the world, and we want to be able to focus more on East Asia. You can’t do that if you’re not willing to make trade-offs. And every single day in this town, I see the weird ways in which this current leadership is totally unable to make trade-offs. When I made this argument, probably six or so months ago, among my Senate Republican colleagues, that there were, for example, only so many artillery shells in the world, and we couldn’t send them to Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine at the quantities that they want because there aren’t enough to send there, so we’re going to have to pick and choose. I was told that my math just simply didn’t make sense. And yet yesterday, I had a representative of the Israeli government telling me exactly, well, your math did make sense. And in fact, the failure to do those trade-offs prolonged the war in Gaza in a way that I think is really destructive to American interests. So if we want to do a foreign policy, we want to have a foreign policy for the middle class, maybe the most important thing is to recognize what every middle-class family in this country recognizes, that we have scarce resources, you have to make trade-offs, and you have to focus on the things that really matter.”
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:8370e6ee-2ef7-425a-9948-9c61e8073100
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The GOP has been taken over by isolationists who redefine surrender as compromise.
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Zzzzzzzzz All of that was caused by Biden’s domestic spending.
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If anyone would actually read it I would write a retort to Vance’s very naive and misguided position above. He takes one valid point, and then piles on isolationist ideologies and packages them as “refocusing” on a different area.
He has premises in there that are valid, but building a house with two corners and no foundation doesn’t work.
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Damn. A Yale law school grad is that rambling and inarticulate? I will respond concisely.
1. It is in America’s strategic interests to support Israel because it is a stable democratic ally in a dangerously anti-Western region. American strategic interests have nothing to do with Jesus.
2. It is in America’s strategic interests to provide military aid to Ukraine to prevent Russia from establishing military bases further west into Europe on seized Ukrainian territory.
What branch of the military did you serve in, MG? I will ask until you answer.
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A long but informative read, MG.
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Vic obviously , doesn’t know what the word isolationist means. And obviously can not think clearly because of his emotional attachment to Ukraine. Hopefully, most of the rest of the posters here can be more objective and see that there is no way Ukraine is going to defeat Russia. So, instead of wrecking our economy even more than what it has already done by giving hundreds of billions of dollars and weapons to Ukraine lets find a solution to end this war and save the lives of thousands of people!
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Having experience in both areas I will unequivocally say:
If America stopped supporting Israel, it would cease to exist in a week. They can not survive without their enemies knowing that if they go too far, America will intercede and turn their homes into glass.
Israel has been working with Saudi and the UAE much longer than is known in public to counter Iran. Saudi and Iran hate each other. I can’t tell you the number of attacks that occur in the UAE by Iran that go unreported in the news. Y’all would be shocked.
While the premise that we have to adjust our foreign policy because we are no longer in a cold war where spreading Democracy was the key, it does not mean we should shirk helping our allies in Europe et al.
The support we have given in Ukraine is justified and proper. Remember, Trump actually wanted to give them more military equipment. Also, for those who don’t realize, Ukraine was the center of weaponry for the old Soviet union, and their number one real export has been weapons manufactured by a conglomerate they put together after the fall.
I do believe it’s time to negotiate a settlement that pushes Russia back, guarantees NATO membership if they ever invade again, and the commitment that has already been made by the West to rebuild Ukraine.
I can also tell you, Jan, that the US will be at the forefront of sending rebuilding aid to Ukraine, to be spent on US contractors to do the rebuild. The idea that ending the war is going to stop US aid, even if Trump is President is either naive, or willful ignorance.
BTW, will one of y’all identify what “endless war” the USA is involved in? Maybe ill ask some of my colleagues and they can tell me where they have been fighting this endless war I keep hearing about.
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MG. Ukraine will never defeat Russia. We should be negotiating a peace. A thug like Putin only negotiates if you are fighting him. I believe that as soon as Trump takes over there will be peace in 3-6 months. I will be very happy when there is peace.
I don’t have an “emotional attachment” to Ukraine. I have just worked there extensively, and understand the military. BTW, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. I am more concerned about “graft” with the rebuilding aid than I am with the military aid going there.
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To be very clear. I wish there had never been a war in Ukraine. I wish we could have found a solution earlier. I will be crazy happy when it’s over. The rebuild is where y’all should be concerned because that is going to be letting the foxes into the chicken coup.
Not supporting cutting off aid to Zelinsky because Ukraine had a role in impeaching Trump does not mean someone promotes “endless wars” as the Pauliacs first called them, and sadly that lexicon has made its way into mainstream Republican vocabularies.
As someone who has served and been in war…I do not promote war, and a world at complete peace is as close to utopia as we could get. It won’t happen.
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if Vance said that it demonstrates his ignorance as to both countries.
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If you are a Ukrainian, Putin must be defeated at all costs.
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Wrong Wray refuses to testify on the assassination attempt against president trump.
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NT
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