The Peanut Gallery: US Congressional Dumpster Fire Continues Ever-Burning Conflagration -Texas Considers Seceding From the Union.
January 26, 2024
Welcome to the Peanut Gallery! Your daily dose of unfounded speculation.
Please remember that I know nothing.
The Kremlin and US officials rejected rumors about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to engage in meaningful negotiations amid continued indications from the Kremlin that Russia seeks nothing less than full Ukrainian and Western capitulation.
Them backchannel rumors of peace requests are back, a rather unwelcome development. I don’t think anyone in the West should reciprocate. Why is Putin approaching us? We aren’t at war with the Russian Federation. If Putin is serious about surrendering, then he should talk to Ukraine. They are the only ones who can decide when this ends.
Russian demands for Ukrainian “neutrality” and a moratorium on NATO expansion have always been and continue to be one of Putin’s central justifications for his invasion of Ukraine, and any hypothetical concession on these demands would represent a major strategic and rhetorical retreat on Putin’s behalf that Putin is extremely unlikely to be considering at this time.
There can be no peace so long as the Kremlin retains a single Ukrainian child.
The circumstances of the January 4 crash of a Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft in Belgorod Oblast remain unclear.
Of course they do. If the Kremlin packed the transport craft with Ukrainian prisoners then they’d be gladly showing it off. This would be a point of pride for them, and I guarantee every news outlet would be plastered with pictures. Else why announce Ukraine shot down a plane full of POWs in the first place?
Unless it’s a lie, one deployed to distract from the fact that Ukraine can apparently shoot down aircraft up to thirty kilometers behind the Russian border. It’s real fuckin’ convenient for Putin that nobody is talking about that right now.
The European Union (EU) will provide Ukraine with an additional five billion euros to meet “urgent military needs” in the near future.
Please. And give them lots and lots of more. Like a lot more. Give them the keys to the armory and a wheelbarrow.
Russia reportedly imported $1.7 billion worth of advanced microchips and semiconductors in 2023, primarily from the West, skirting Western sanctions intended to deprive Russia of such technology.
Intestingly, this is actually a decline from the $2.3 billion in 2022. It’s a sign sanctions work. Kind of. It’s an aggregate amount so it doesn’t tell us much. The real question is, how much more did the Kremlin pay per unit? If the price goes up, then the amount they shelled out doesn’t tell us much, does it? How much inflation are we dealing with here?
Elements of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s alleged personal private military company (PMC) may have deployed to Ukraine.
Cool. Why Moscow’s mayor has its own PMC is beyond me, but apparently this is the world we live in now so we best all get used to it. I wish these boys the worst of luck.
I fuckin’ love my country. This place is goofy as hell.
President Biden said Friday that he would use new emergency authorities to “shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed” if Congress passes a bipartisan immigration plan that the Senate has been negotiating.
First let’s lay the groundwork because all of this shit is connected. Here’s the chain of causality:
Donald Trump raped E Jean Carroll in a department store changing room.
Ukraine’s funding is linked to US border security because...that’s just how our government works. A two-party system is inherently antagonistic (as power is zero sum) and with democratization of the veto moving forward generally means moving diagonally. I mean, just look into our history, we place the concept on a pedestal, so progress generally comes in a “Five steps forward, two steps back,” sort of pace. People with sense want something, so we give the nutjobs their pound of flesh and do the best we can. In this case it’s afflicting an atrocity on South American refugees. Yeah, compromises suck. When you’ve done one right, nobody leaves happy.
To be unwilling to compromise is un-American.
Donald Trump is incapable of compromise.
Donald Trump is a stupid piece of shit who can’t keep his mouth close, therefore he now owes Carroll $84 million.
Donald Trump claims his net worth is $2.1 billion (about $7.00 per person in the US for perspective). Actually, he claims a lot of numbers, but that’s the one Forbes decided to stick with. And considering Mar-A-Lago is worth approximately 1.8% of what Trump claims it’s worth, I believe he does not have $84 million on hand and will, therefore, borrow at obscene interest rates to satisfy the judiciary’s demanded recompense.
Donald Trump is a salty, whiny bitch.
Texas Governor Gregg Abott is like Ron DeSantis, in the same way Ron DeSantis is like Donald Trump: one degree less charismatic.
Abott decided he wanted to cover the southern border is razor wire, preventing several federal agents from doing their jobs while also being pointlessly sadistic.
Biden said, “Stop. Borders my job.”
Abott said, “Fuck you. It’s my state.”
Supreme Court chimed in, “Nah, President’s right. Executive maintains border security.”
Biden announced he was sending in federal agents to cut up the border wire.
Abott deployed the Texas National Guard to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from accessing Eagle Pass, a national park.
This is technically a state governor refusing a direct federal order from two branches of the US government while on federal territory.
Twenty-five GOP governors signed letters supporting Abott’s actions.
Donald Trump, salty from his unlubricated reaming by the lovely miss Carroll, decided to chime in with, “My asshole hurts and I’m a scared little bitch who’s about to go to jail. Start a civil war to save me!”
It then came out Donald Trump urged the MAGA wing in Congress to kill the Border-Ukraine bill because Trump wanted to use the border crisis as a campaign platform.
The Maga crowd decided Eagle Pass is their new Alamo.
DeSantis sent a few police, according to where TheDonald eventually migrated (no, I’m not linking it here).
Biden team leaked key details of the pending border-Ukraine bill in an attempt to showcase that they’re addressing the problem, but MAGA is stopping them.
The Biden team is absolutely right and this is tactically the correct response. Let’s hope this places political pressure on the House of Representatives. I think we’re about to see a significant showdown in Congress.
We’ve no idea if it’ll work. There’s a Russian information operation ongoing atm to say the border deal is dead. It is not. Why else would the Biden team leak details of the compromise?
And now everyone’s sitting around wondering if Biden’s about to activate the Texas national guard to order a standdown.
A standdown order would be a tool of last resort. It forces a ‘yes-or-no' before the various arguments can play themselves out. Biden likely won’t solve this juxtaposition today or tomorrow, rather it would be in the White House’s interest to let the story percolate. Slow burn. People are already against Trump. Everyone hates the GOP. Give it a few days, and then when he’s done everything he can to incriminate himself, slap the fucker in chains.
By demanding his supporters gather in Eagle Pass for the express purpose of preventing the President of the United States from exercising his Constitutionally granted powers, Trump is attempting insurrection. America has a responsibility to charge this man with treason, and I strongly believe that our justice system should consider the death penalty.
Anyway, that’s a brief summary of why the United States hasn’t passed the Ukraine funding package yet.
Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko confirmed that Russian authorities have deported over 2,100 Ukrainians, including 500 children, to Russia for medical reasons in 2023.
Please give Ukraine what they need to bring this to an end.
'Q’ For the Community:
Will the GOP survive intact as a party over the next six months?
Why does Moscow’s mayor have its own mercenary company? Does that seem odd to anyone else?
Join the conversation over on /r/TheNuttySpectacle.