Trump falsely blames Ukraine for starting war with Russia, echoing Putin's talking point
By: CNN
You should have never started the war, you could have given up land.
Not at all surprising. Disgusting. But not surprising.
The easiest way to end the war is to throw Ukraine under the bus and force them to capitulate.
But to blame Zelensky on top of all this is quintessential Trump.
Looks like Putin has Trump under control.
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Trump is unfit.
Arrogant, stupid, and a sociopath.
I have been sucking it up till now, but he is now an actual danger to the world order. He is Putin's toy and Europe should take note.
The Europeans already know. The damage Trump is doing to America's standing in the world, along with the destruction he is wreaking internally, will likely take 2 or 3 generations to recover from, although, unfortunately, much of it will be permanent. Our former friends and allies, the world's democracies, will never again see the U.S. as a reliable partner. But Putin certainly will, at least for the duration of the Trump regime.
The damage Trump is doing to America's standing in the world, along with the destruction he is wreaking internally, will likely take 2 or 3 generations to recover from
That is assuming that the country gets shocked back into its senses. The fact that Trump still has support from the people he is actively harming means the stupid isn’t going to end in the normal way. When Trump is gone there will be a long line of protégés chomping at the bit to continue the grift and exploit those too ignorant to think for themselves. They’ve learned how to be effective at this horror.
Sadly correct.
My question is who will be next? JD Vance or Trump Jr.?
... musk, after maga completely guts and negates the US constitution.
Allowing a non-native American being elected? Goes wholly against MAGA's anti-immigrant stance.
I suppose all of non far rightwing media is rightfully scared. Newspapers, magazines and websites are reticent to express their concerns or share their opinions, for their personal safety. Call me Krazy, but I am actually afraid both personally and publicly, and even here. While overall I do believe that this site has been fairly neutral regarding Trump, he turns quickly and seeks vengeance. There are likely four more years to go. Maybe best for me and others to tuck tail and shut up as warned to. When all is said and done though, that will be seen a cowardice. Things may get worse, way worse. You feel oppressed? It is palpable. People are genuinely afraid, rightly so...
I won't call you crazy. But this is crazy talk.
Who, exactly, has issued such a warning?
Not in the slightest. What are you now unable to do that you were able to do back in October? Who, precisely, is being "oppressed"?
No, not rightly so.
Look, people can choose to be afraid. But it's a choice, and it's almost never the right one.
I wouldn't call it "Krazy" but I would call it a bit paranoid at this stage, at least on the same level as conservatives believing Democrats are going to round up all their guns.
Could this administration become a slippery slope with half the country defending and empowering a rightwing authoritarian, whether Trump or some successor, who create something like the MAGAite Gestapo and track us online to root out the supposed "commies"?
Could someday we have an attempted purge of those Americans that the bitter angry regime labeled threats to our nation as they try to eliminate the rational patriotic Americans who prefer the constitutional federal Republic our founders created?
Yes, but only if our checks and balances do not hold, which, at this point, doesn't seem to be in jeopardy.
Right now, we don't have the executive branch rounding up opposing members of the legislative (although it's clear Trump has many Republican legislators who are beholden to his constituents who are held in virtual captivity) or the judicial branches to force them to comply to the executives demands. We don't have any military or national guard rounding up civilians that are protesting. We don't have an executive sending out assassins to murder their political opponents or imprison them on trumped up charges.
These are, of course, all things we see happening in Russia, but thankfully not here in America. Now with Trumps clear move towards Putin, and his praise and expressed admiration for 'strong men' authoritarianism, that does put us on a dangerous trajectory where if we're not careful we could shift so far right over the next few years we hit the Rubicon.
That's a very good analogy.
Right next to this seed are two others, parroting Trump's attacks on Ukraine and Zelensky. No problem?
Yet Trump supporters will claim that this is all hysteria. That no damage has been done. They are just 'talking'. And that Trump did not really blame Zelensky for 'starting' the war but rather just noted that this could be solved by negotiation (which would be capitulation by Ukraine).
This and many other acts by Trump should illustrate starkly how much faith we have put in our presidents ... how much damage an irresponsible and stubbornly stupid PotUS can cause. Up until Trump, we have been relatively fortunate (even considering the errors in judgment by past presidents).
The war in Ukraine did not begin with the Russian invasion of 2022. The actual start of the war was in 2014 when the Ukrainian Rada (legislature) overturned and election and installed an unelected government.
So, yes, an interim government installed by the Ukrainian legislature started the war. Apparently we're not allowed to include the real history of the conflict because Obama screwed that pooch.
The whole affair started because Ukraine did not want to pay its gas bill.
The war started when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and then again escalated in 2022.
One nation invading another nation is the critical event. Blaming Ukraine for Putin acting to seize their land is insane.
Russia already had a large presence in Crimea and was underpinning the economy of Crimea.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia was engaged in extending and solidifying its influence by providing weapons and munitions. (That's one of the tools the US has relied upon to extend influence.) Russia had been providing Ukraine with oil and gas at a steep discount to obtain discounts on Ukrainian made weapons and munitions.
A little more than a decade after Glasnost, Russia (under Putin) had begun opening itself to investment and trade with the west. Russia was taking the first small steps away from relying upon military influence and developing economic influence. (Russia became a player in OPEC, as an example.) Russia did not feel the need to give Ukraine steep discounts on oil and gas any longer; Russia demanded Ukraine pay market price. And Russia was buying fewer weapons from Ukraine.
Naturally the end of cheap oil and gas caused large price increases in Ukraine and upset consumers in Ukraine. And the Ukrainian government ran up a large debt with Russia. The Maidan protests were really motivated by cost of living and promises that joining the EU would improve incomes. The Ukrainian legislature exploited the 'revolutionary' popular opinion to skip out on its debt to Russia.
Prior to 2014, Ukraine's largest trading partner for imports and exports was Russia. Following the Maidan protests, toppling of the elected government, Russian annexation of Crimea, and fighting in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine shifted its trade relations to China for both imports and exports. So, the claimed Ukrainian shift away from Russia and toward the EU really contributed nothing to the EU economy. And Ukraine began shopping weapons and munitions to terror groups that posed a threat to Europe (and other countries in the Middle East and Far East).
When a nation invades another to seize territory, that is the critical event.
Trump already said that Ukraine may become part of Russia and cease to exist as an independent country. We can soon expect Trump to adopt Putin's propaganda that, in fact, Ukraine is not a country and is Russia. Therefore, it was not an invasion to seize territory. It was rightfully Russia. Also, that Zelensky is a Nazi.
Trump has shown his cards to the planet. He is an irresponsible embarrassment to this nation and the danger of him having the power of the US presidency is illustrated weekly.
One can only hope that what he has in mind (he likely only has a 'concept') will surpass the tolerance of Congress and that they will use their approval of treaties, funding powers etc. to cause it to fail. A very long shot.
I am afraid they, the Congress, are complicit in the demise of the United States of America.
Thus far, they (at least the GOP portion) are spineless.
.
The way Trump is already firing federal employees and closing necessary federal offices in rural counties is quietly blowing up. All it should take is a smattering of gop senators to break off from MAGA after the 2026 midterms, when the Democrats will surely regain the House of Representatives, to quash Trump for good...
The Executive Order Trump signed today which declare that he and his AG can override any US laws is unconstitutional as Hell! It was the act of a king, a tyrant, a rank tin pan dictator. Intolerable!
Do you think Trump supporters see that Trump is engaged in a major league power grab? Or are they still blinded?
This is what a power grab looks like.
I believe some do and approve but that a majority of MAGA are brainwashed by Fox News and rightwing media. Then there are always the misanthropes and social throwbacks who just plain hate.
That's a distortion of what Trump actually said in the EO. Here's what it actually says:
Reading this, it's pretty clear there's no basis for claiming authority for the President or the AG of being able to override even laws governing the Executive Branch, let alone all US law.
There are around 438 federal agencies/sub agencies. My guess is that this EO is intended to make sure all of them are running their agencies in accordance with Trump's policies rather than their own or the administrations that put them (the leadership of the organization) there.
I don't see any way to see this as illegal or unconstitutional by itself. After all, that is what executive power is supposed to do; manage the government. What may be illegal or unconstitutional (if there's a difference) is how the President or the AG interpret applicable laws going forward.
Note: I won't be entertaining questions about any interpretations of the law thus far made by Trump concerning their constitutionality at this time. The question I'm addressing is the one JBB brought up about the EO and whether it is unconstitutional or not. In my view, JBB's interpretation is simply a gross exaggeration and not true and we get too much of that already.
Pointing out the obvious here - the issue at hand is when Trump directs a department to do, or not do, something and a federal court counter orders that. This EO implies they imperial their job if they comply with the court OR risk contempt of court charges.
No.
Congress - controlled by the
RepublicanFascist Party is not spineless. It is an active, intentional, willful partner in the destruction of democracy in America.While that may be an issue, it isn't the issue. Is the EO illegal or not?
The executive branch is constitutionally answerable to the President. That is entirely different from the President trying to issue directives that change, eliminate or ignore mandates for which the legislative branch created the agencies to do, and is duty bound to support.
It doesn't do anyone any good to argue that something is what it isn't.
Because they are spineless. They are kowtowing to Trump out of fear. Romney laid this out nicely in his book when he talked about how they ridicule Trump in private.
There certainly are some who agree with Trump, but mostly I suspect Romney is correct that they are acting based upon Trump's popularity with their constituents.
Watch what happens when his poll numbers drop.
The judicial branch determines if an act is legal or illegal. No EO can override the interpretation of the law by the judiciary.
Read this from the EO:
This does not bother you? Nowhere does it acknowledge that the Executive branch must abide by the interpretation of law from the Judicial branch. If an employee of the Executive branch advances an interpretation of the law made by the Judicial branch, this says that the interpretation can be rejected by the PotUS.
The GOP's move toward fascism started long before Trump appeared. The Federalist Society - the fascist infiltration of the nation's courts at all levels - began in the 1980s. The Tea Party movement began in 2007.
Trump is obviously a big part of the fascist takeover in America, but he is only a part. The takeover began before Trump, and will outlast him.
A Simply Orwellian claim Bob.
Not at all.
I don't agree. I think it's intended to stop the very thing you point out here but see differently than I do. That is, thousands of people within the executive agencies interpreting the law and their job according to what they think those things are. Take DEI for example. That's one primary example of what the EO is intended to do.
Where Trump is going to run into trouble concerning this EO are things like the DOE. If he tries to get rid of it, which he doesn't have the power to do in the first place, he's going to spend a lot of time in court. If he tries to get around that by downsizing into ineffectiveness, same thing. The most he can do is eliminate bloat and programs that aren't specifically mandated.
The more extreme he is in what he's trying to do, the more lawsuits that will be coming his way. In any case, one effect of the EO is that the lawsuits will be coming at him, or the agency heads he places there, not the rank and file.
One other thing I think the EO is intended to do. Let those within the executive branch, who may feel they need to do what they can to oppose Trump in whatever way they can, like hiding a DEI program, know that he's not screwing around. If Truman could fire MacArthur, then...
Lastly, I don't see anything in this EO that indicates Trump can ignore laws. He can challenge them in court, as he appears to be doing with jus soli, but he can't ignore them. If he tries to after losing the court case anyway, well, we'll know just how much trouble we're really in if he isn't immediately impeached and then removed from office.
An EO cannot create new power for a PotUS.
Thus there is no reason to write an EO saying that the PotUS (and the AG, which is bullshit ... we know this is Trump and only Trump) have the right to interpret the law within the Executive branch ONLY and override the interpretations of law done by subordinates within the Executive branch. The PotUS already has the power to lawfully direct operations.
What the EO states, however, is that the PotUS has the power to override any legal interpretation brought by a subordinate and does not include the exception that it cannot override if the legal interpretation was done by the Judicial branch.
To wit, the PotUS already can disagree with a legal interpretation and override a subordinate's legal interpretation. But it cannot, under any circumstances, override the legal interpretation if it was made by the Judicial branch.
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Unless the Supreme Courts allows it. I wouldn't bet either way...
The CotUS does not give the PotUS the ability to expand the power of the office.
I doubt even this SCotUS would agree with the Executive branch overriding the interpretation of law made by the Judicial branch.
trump capitulating to putin will be a line crossed without return for maga ...
Every time Trump opens his mouth to speak about the Ukraine invasion by Russian (and other things) a lie pops out and his crew scrambles to try and put a "what he meant was" spin on the lie