South Dakota’s elected leaders go ga-ga for every dollar they can get Uncle Sam to spend on Ellsworth Air Force Base as an economic lifeline for Rapid City. So they ought to appreciate the economic stimulus argument President Joe Biden made last night for the billions ($60B for Ukraine, $14B for Israel, sources say) in additional military spending he wants Congress to authorize now:
And let me be clear about something: We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores — our own stockpiles with new equipment — equipment that defe- — that defends America and is made in America: Patriot missiles for air defense batteries made in Arizona; artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas; and so much more.
You know, just as in World War Two, today, patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom [President Joe Biden, speech from the Oval Office, 2023.10.19].
In addition to appealing to South Dakota Republicans’ passion for military economic stimulus, President Biden also struck the chords of SDGOP passion for American exceptionalism:
When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he would take Kyiv and all of Ukraine in a matter of days. Well, over a year later, Putin has failed, and he continues to fail. Kyiv still stands because of the bravery of the Ukrainian people.
Ukraine has regained more than 50 percent of the territory Russian troops once occupied, backed by a U.S.-led coalition of more than 50 countries around the world all doing its part to support Kyiv.
What would happen if we walked away? We are the essential nation.
…And as I walked through Kyiv with President Zelenskyy, with air raid sirens sounding in the distance, I felt something I’ve always believed more strongly than ever before: America is a beacon to the world still. Still.
We are, as my friend Madeleine Albright said, “the indispensable nation.”
Tonight, there are innocent people all over the world who hope because of us, who believe in a better life because of us, who are desperate not be forgotten be- — by us, and who are waiting for us [Biden, 2023.10.19].
America, the exceptional nation, the arsenal of democracy—President Biden talks like Roosevelt and Reagan all wrapped up into one. If House Republicans can stop their squabbling and pass the foreign aid bill the President sends them today, they can stand up to terrorists and tyrants and boost the economy with bang-bangs, the kind of stuff our Republican leaders chant all the time.
We are exceptional at facilitating death.
Israeli frag count is now higher than Hamas’s and the gap is likely to grow as we pump more money into the chaos as an ‘investment’ (per Biden last night).
1,600+ Gaza children killed according to Palestinian health officials.
Weapons manufacturers are loving it, but I say, let’s outlaw rockets, militaries, and machine guns, to cut greehouse gases, to save the planet, and to save the children.
Joe Biden will do anything he can to deplete USA resouurces. HE loves giving our money away to foreign countries, even to our enemies
Mike, I’m confused: how does putting money into the pockets of US arms manufacturers deplete USA resources? You righties usually love corporate welfare.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-gantz-agree-form-emergency-israel-government-statement-2023-10-11/
Israel vows to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth and they and American weapons, don’t care how many innocent civilians will pay for the crimes levelled against Hamas. And the US will not allow the UN or World Courts to punish Israel for war crimes.
Our president addresses his fellow Americans like a leader, like anyone around the world would want to be spoken to. His words hit the spot. He moved the immovable and put in some serious work on his trip. I hope he truly got through to Israel that Palestinians aren’t just another casualty in the war on HAMAS.
Putin needs his oss whooped, once and for all. Just flatten the little louse. Trump and Putin are proof that fascism is a voracious flesh eating virus that spreads like wildfire and we need to put it out immediately. Peaceful strategies are steroids for fascistic little biters. It has to be met with force. We know this.
Anyways, I hope we can get the other half of our countrymen back so we can stop helping Putinanny’s chaos campaign and stop the internal feeding on our democracy.
Actually, the Biden/Harris Administration is moving to restrict foreign entities from mining on American soil including in South Dakota. Because the Trump Organization despises Native Americans uranium mining was fast-tracked in and around Indian Country where tribes already suffer from diseases and birth defects wrought by radioactive contamination.
Stopping Chinese client state Russia in Ukraine and in the Middle East is paramount to protecting Americans.
Zit is too young and/or dumb to remember how the Raygun administration armed and aided both sides in Iran/Iraq war, traded arms to Iran for release of hostages, sold Iraq components for nukular program that Israel later bombed and gave terrorist groups fighting Russia in Afghanistan STA missiles to down Soviet jets and helicopters and after the Russians withdrew, used those same weapons against the US when neocons decided to refight Vietnam in Afghanistan and lose again.
War strategy: Talk up how bad and hideous the enemy is to rationalize your level of violent response with the public.
Hamas/Israel, Ukraine/Russia, (insert name here)/(insert name here) just need to stop already.
People get one shot at the universe. Think about that. _one shot_. And it’s taken away in the blink of an eye by nature and ape-men running things.
Russia’s GDP is about what New York’s is so Moscow’s reliance on Beijing is becoming more critical each day yet Republicans ignore that influence.
I don’t think America is exceptional. We shouldn’t do wars and arm the world to stimulate the economy. I am more in line with the dovish side of most military engagements. But my dovishness stops at fascism and terrorism. Things like ethnic cleansing, fascism and the terrorism to be addressed. Supplying weapons and dollars seems a relatively cheap price to pay for a more secure world.
TC Energy has been given the green light for a pipeline to the West Coast in an effort to deprive Putin of the petrodollars he needs to prosecute a larger war in Eastern Europe. Helluva tradeoff, init?
Same, Mr. Pay. Although, I also agreed with President Biden’s take on people around the world looking to us for hope. I know that feeling and it is humbling to know without the USA, who are kids going to rely on for that hope? I know it isn’t so for everyone, especially in Iraq and Talibanistan/ Afghanistan etc. We hopefully learned not to do that again.
I think about those girls in Iran cheering Zin, Zindagi, Azadi! Who is going to stand up while they’re being slaughtered? It won’t stop by only spreading hope to them. We have to spread the fear of God into their subjugators. Who else will? They have no means. We sat too long, allowing the Holocaust. I agree, doves might have to get nasty in order for there to be peace. Why can’t the aholes just give it a rest for once?
All Mammal, how can any opposition put the “fear of God” into subjugators when it is their very belief in god that has them doing the horrible things they do? Is there a point where radicalized religion has become so detrimental that only the eradication of the believers is the only step to take? I pose the same question that many of us struggle to answer her over-and-over: how can we use reason to combat those who refuse reason?
Israel is about hell-bent on creating another generation of terrorists and Hamas. There is no military solution. US over-reliance on its military led to 40-years of losing wars, lying generals, and failed foreign policy. Israel, and its right wingnut government is about to slog down that path and will have nothing positive to show for it.
Israeli needs to default to the systematic, methodical terrorist killing it used to wipe out the violent group Black September after the Munich Olympic bombing.
Israel needs a bigger enemy. The US ought to impose a 2-state solution on Israel and Palestine . . . making each think it was their idea. Set a future date whereby all US funding dries up if the parties haven’t implemented on the ground, a 2-state solution with no enclaves.
Regardless of the fact you are Democrat or Republican, you have to be concerned that the Federal Government is so in love with sending your Federal Tax Dollars to both Israel and to the Ukraine. This is about depleting U.S Resources, shipping all of our assets to Foreign Countries and Territories, with the goal to deplete our Checkbook.
For people like me, being ridiculed and called a “Anti-Semite” by Democrats and Republicans both, I cannot comprehend why we wish to fund foreign wars, with the intent to expand this Zionist Movement.
When you learn of the truth, and the facts, we should be trying to understand what the Nation of Israel really is, and what it is not.
First thing first, we have to understand where the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel are today, and do they want to go back to the former land?
Second, we must understand the Tribe of Judah and it’s two houses called Zareh and Pharez and how do they fit into the scheme of restablishing the Nation of Israel today?
And Third, we must understand that many of the American People today are from the former Tribe of Dan, and to that notion, are they wanting to go back to their former land today, or remain in the U.S?
So I beg you, What really is the Nation of Israel?
To me, the Nation of Israel is nothing more than the 12 Tribes of Jacob, and once we understand who they are, we then can understand that Israel itself, is not one single country, not one single group of people, nor one single government system…
The Nation of Israel is nothing more than the People of the Globe.
We’re all Africans despite all the crap written in one poorly translated book that even President Jefferson rejected as fairy tales. Israel is nothing more than a disputed territory.
O- I don’t know. Religion may just end human life on our planet. I would rather try stopping it even though I have no right deciding who gets sacrificed into the pyre. My best solution is take guns from men and give women birth control and a handful of seeds and watch her sow a better world with a little breathing room from violence and those two things. I believe in that solution but it gets laughed at, understandably. But the next best thing I can come up with is letting our trained boys loose on fascism to kill it.
What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. War! Huh. Good God, y’all. Say it again. War!
Listening to anyone speaking on this issue with confidence is like listening to children talk about politics or religion. If you’re someone speaking on this issue with confidence, then like a broken clock you’re almost certainly wrong. If by chance you’re right, it’s not likely due to superior intelligence, but luck.
Republicans claim Israel as the Holy Land to excuse themselves from the Native American Genocide.
Harry Truman was the worst US President of the Twentieth Century. Prove me wrong.
If religion ends all human life, maybe it ain’t all that bad. We humans are unrepentant, tribal, destructive creatures anyway. Maybe religion was meant to protect the earth FROM us. That would be some delicious irony.
Trump’s former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis just told one of the cable networks that the US supporting an apartheid regime in Israel is catastrophic in its consequences.
Joe “Steady” Biden has five crises on his desk.
– Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorist attack
– Vladimir Putin meeting with Xi
– A malicious Iran
– Kim Jong Un
– A new weapon (A massive spread of doctored or wholly fake videos to manipulate what people see and think in real time.)
Trump had one crisis and his solution was to “Drink bleach.”
Joe’s just the right age for the job.
*above data from Axios
Check out this 2007 video with President Jimmy Carter where he warned about apartheid in Palestine.
https://x.com/jasonoverstreet/status/1715101427331162170?s=46
“Regardless of the fact you are Democrat or Republican, you have to be concerned that the Federal Government is so in love with sending your Federal Tax Dollars to both Israel and to the Ukraine.”
First, I’d say the federal government is not a sentient being so I doubt it can be “in love” with anything. I think a lot of what the politicians who run the federal government do can be questioned. I’d say I am concerned, except what we would be sending to Israel and Ukraine is mostly warehoused hardware, rather than dollars, tax or otherwise. We have the hardware in stockpiles and warehouses. It’s already been paid for by tax dollars, borrowed dollars or electronically-created dollars. We will probably restock much of that stockpile with tax dollars, borrowed dollars, or electronically-created dollars. What is being discussed is not so much buying new weapons or weapons systems to give to other countries, but allowing them to use things we’ve already purchased but that we aren’t using.
As to whom we send various weapons to, I have concerns. I have less concerns with some countries than others. When our leaders provide weapons systems to Saudi Arabia, I object. I think Israel has done a lot of wrong to the Palestinians, but Israel faces a terrorist threat at the moment, and I don’t think any people should have to face a terrorist threat.. Thus, I’m just over the line to accepting Israel’s need for that military hardware. Ukraine’s need is far more clear to me than Israel’s. They face a Nazi-like attempt to annex land, resources and people against international law.
So, yes, this stuff ought to be of concern to anyone. But the potential cost of not doing anything seems to be far more than the cost of providing the weapons. Terrorists and fascist leaders, like criminals, need to be addressed when they violate the norms of society. It would be fine if there was a better way to address the issue, but I don’t see any, other than providing some weapons. It’s too bad we don’t have a functioning United Nations that could bring these fascists and terrorists to heel.
Putin is in his old age and wants to reestablish the Russian Empire before he passes into the dust bin of dictator history. His country is in tatters. He is willing to destroy it, and Ukraine, the Baltic States, Moldova, Georgia, and Azerbaijan if need be. He wants an ethnically pure Russian state.
As Donald notes weapons have “use by” dates. Have you ever gone bird hunting with three year old shells?
Shoes for Industry!
Shoes for Defense!
And The Zit returns for more pummeling!
We are doing the 10 lost tribes thing again?
@All Mammal… I was going to quote that exact same line from the song. Awesome song, true words. No, I’m not a hippy (too young). War is for cavemen.
Kim Jong Un isnt a crisis; he’s a bowl cut with an attitude.
Kim Jong Un always reminded me of a warm cocktail shrimp, curled around the edge of the glass, with his face in the sauce and his butt up in the air. Ionno why:/ he’s an evil cartoon caricature. G-Zero World’s Puppet Regime nails it
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOxJWTt83gc&pp=ygURcHVwcGV0IHJlZ2ltZSBraW0%3D
Joe Biden is part of the problem, always shipping our Federal Taxes to foreign countries, territories, people. HE is no different than George Bush. in fact, the two are both war mongers.
Listen to this little girl living in GAZA, this is so sad -https://www.facebook.com/reel/357419353402268?mibextid=kcDB8O – this should NOT be happening. The Federal Govt is funding these wars. I am thankful that during 2017-2021, NO WARS were funded under Donald Trump.
“I want people to stop dying” – Donald Trump.
During 2017-2021, President Trump had Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran all signing Peace Deals, but yeah, the media tells ignorant Americans that Donald Trump BAD, Joe Biden GOOD. The media is the problem, always has been the problem, and WE will call out the Media for who they truly are. CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC, CNN are the PROBLEM!!!
Thank God for Independent Journalists for helping to Wake People Up, Educating them, Informing them, and Giving People the Tools Necessary to Question the Government, Audit the Government, Hold the Government Accountable
Thank God, States are again Organizing, attempting to Restore the Republic of 50 Free, Sovereign, Independent State’s.
GOD will win, in the end, “WE” will Restore the Republic!
Zitterich would enable the destruction of the republic to allow a supernatural extraterrestrial to rule a global population.
Do people really still use commercial teevee?
The Zittiots would cede Alaska to Putin.
The god construct is not only unnecessary it’s intellectually languorous.
Ellsworth has proved to be an exceedingly poor location for the B-1 so why is that base even being considered for the B-21? I was in Rapid City went the last bomber augered in. Accidents have plagued the aircraft. After the 1997 crash of a B-1 in Carter County a responding volunteer firefighter from Alzada told this interested party the multi-million dollar aircraft was brought down by a rancher with a .30-30 Winchester.
In 2016 Republican former legislator Steve Hickey called for Ellsworth to be shuttered.
Doc Kurtz- a B-1 crashed at Ellsworth last night. The four crewmen were ejected and are recovering. Scary. https://kbhbradio.com/air-force-updates-info-on-b1-crash-crew-members/
Oh, btw, I watch regular TV. No cable. There are several PBS channels that I wish more people took advantage of. There have been countless programs on PBS that changed my life. PBS is on-point. I saw an episode of Independent Lens the other day called A Day in the Life of America, directed by Jered Leto. It was stellar. Another documentary aired on PBS once was called The Distant Barking of Dogs. Ripped my heart out. Then replaced it with a special spot of hatred for Putin. You also need local TV for Jeopardy!
Hay Larry angered another one in last night. Thought someone drove into my house. I live 1 1/2 miles north of runway.
So, is Ellsworth really worth saving?
Is Ellsworth capable of hosting the B-21 when the base breaks the planes it already has?
Plane came down during bad weather, fog, icy sleet, low visability. The plane crashed on the base, thank goodness. Three crew men treated at the base hospital and released. One crew man remains hospitalized. There will be an intensive investigation. The B1’s have been at Ellsworth since the 1980’s.