Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Let there be snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The words do not have to be perfect.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / President Zelenskyy Addresses Congress at 7:30 pm (LIVE)

Reader Interactions

253Comments

  13. 13.

    cain

    Just way too many old white men.

    I’m watching C-SPAN.

    Garland is doing some scanning. I hope he is mentally got a list of people to put in jail.

  15. 15.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @M31:

    And McCarthy is going to inherit the gavel by the thinnest of margins. Ah well, hopefully the chaos just makes the House GOP caucus look unhinged to normal, everyday people.

    Greene, Boebert, Gaetz etc better not heckle Zelenskyy

  16. 16.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Alison Rose: ​
     

    Love seeing Harris and Pelosi standing there together.

    They seem to be having an animated conversation right now. I wonder what they’re talking about?

  18. 18.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Fuck it, saying “Volodymyr” correctly is not hard. Why can’t anyone manage it?

    I guess you’re probably talking about the TV guys, but the next time I hear it pronounced (correctly or not) will be the first.

  26. 26.

    M31

    lol Zelenskyy is thinking “man, I haven’t gotten this much applause since I played the piano with my dick!”

  29. 29.

    M31

    lol Nancy showing her age saying “The Ukraine”

    (I admit that’s a hard one not to say by mistake)

  36. 36.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Alison Rose:

    There was a VFW post I drove past recently in my area that had a digital reader board on the building and one of the messages was, “We stand with the people of the Ukraine”, with the Ukrainian flag in the background. It’s a nice sentiment, but come on guys, it’s not “the” Ukraine, it’s just Ukraine

  41. 41.

    Alison Rose

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, I mean…I also used to say it that way, because russia had made us think that was the way it should be. But as soon as the full-scale war started and I saw Ukrainians correcting us, I stopped. I don’t see how anyone who has heard it as just “Ukraine” for this long can still fuck up.

  44. 44.

    Layer8Problem

    I can’t get over that this is the same guy from Servant of the People.  From comedy to actual, vital, determined leadership of a country in peril.

  45. 45.

    HumboldtBlue

    Battle of the Bulge reference!

    Saratoga reference!

    I doubt there are a dozen member of the GOP caucus, house and senate, who can give even the slightest details on those two battles.

    “And planes… themselves” he nailed that!

    What en excellent communicator, the man has presence, heft, spirit, he exudes it.

    FDR!

  59. 59.

    steppy

    @WaterGirl: Yes, he must. But as Real Actual President Obama said, “You can’t be tired!” He is in this situation and he can’t be tired. He is killing it.

  68. 68.

    West of the Cascades

    I cannot stop crying. “Shchedryk” is playing non-stop in my brain as I listen to this.

  75. 75.

    HumboldtBlue

    Can we also point out the political deftness of this remarkable scene? The Democrats have played this perfectly in the face of oncoming GOP obstinacy and outright hostility to doing the right thing?

    The GOP house members will hem and haw, but they will not be able to escape this man’s shadow when they convene on Jan 3 and expect they will cut aid off to Ukraine.

    Is this Joe’s admin’s doing or a combo of Joe, Nancy and Chuck?

    And how long has this been in the works? Since the dipshit GOP members telegraphed they would try and fuck over Ukraine?

    @West of the Cascades:

    Did someone say bells?

  82. 82.

    morfydd

    @Steeplejack: ​
     

    Fox cut away from the address for a minute near the end with a “breaking alert” from Tucker Carlson that the border is collapsing. As soon as the speech was over, like immediately, TC started giving his response, starting with “they certainly love him, more than they love YOU” and then I got my mom to turn it off. Ugh.

  85. 85.

    gene108

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Fuck it, saying “Volodymyr” correctly is not hard. Why can’t anyone manage it?

    They’re still people who get Kamala wrong, and it’s been awhile since she’s been a public figure.

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    And Tucker Carlson’s chyron as he starts his show: “Zelensky declares war against Christianity.”

  87. 87.

    Alison Rose

    @WaterGirl: Same. I’m gonna rewatch it later. I loved how much strength and power and emotion he put into every word. God, what a damn hero. I know he shakes his head at such comments, but he really is.

  98. 98.

    lowtechcyclist

    That was quite a speech.

    “I assure you that Ukrainian soldiers can operate American tanks and planes themselves.”

    Well of course they can! How many different nations have provided them weapons and vehicles that are all operated differently?  They’ve got their best and brightest out there on the battlefield.  These are people who can pick up these skills much faster than the average grunt from Alabama where learning isn’t much of a priority to begin with.

  99. 99.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Just checked in for a few seconds. Glem Greenwald on now to add to the yammering.

    ETA: Tulsi Gabbard on now. Tucker is bringing out the big guns. I’m not watching; I’m just taking occasional glimpses through my fingers.

  102. 102.

    lowtechcyclist

    @HumboldtBlue:

    No, this was a Congressional event, not the admin.

    Thought I saw some Cabinet people in there before the speech. Sure looked like I was seeing Buttigieg and Garland in the room.

  103. 103.

    NotoriousJRT

    @Elizabelle: I don’t give a flying F what this stupid woman thinks or does. I’m not going to pay any attention to dipsh!ts like her. Rather, I  will celebrate the overall and overriding message and vibe of the evening.

     

    sorry that s/b a response to observed Bobert rudeness.

  106. 106.

    Ruckus

    Simply amazing.

    I had never heard him speak english before so didn’t know what to expect. He was good, very good. We need to support him and his country in whatever way possible and necessary. I thought that since the first day, today just proved to me that I was not wrong to want us to do everything possible.

    I figured that a bunch of the rethuglicans wouldn’t clap or be actual humans because the people they actually work for are not citizens of this country. They are effectively traitors to this country. They do not want to uphold the laws of this country, they want to live in a country that does not respect anything but their bank accounts and hates the same people they do.

  109. 109.

    WaterGirl

    So very very smart of Zelenskyy to make his address in English.  He really connects with people.  You can see the fondness, dare I say love, when he and Nancy SMASH engage with one another.

  111. 111.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ruckus:

    I had never heard him speak english before so didn’t know what to expect.

    You could tell he was working hard at it: the way his finger never left the text, so he wouldn’t get lost; the way he didn’t know precisely where phrases ended, the way his pronunciations were sometimes off by a good bit.  He really worked hard to speak to us in our own language, and I have to respect that.

  112. 112.

    Alison Rose

    @Steeplejack: Then like I said, I’d guess it’s about the churches, which is so fucking dumb. I mean, here he is wishing Merry Christmas to everyone, his own wife is…well, I don’t know what religion she identifies with but I know their kids were baptized. But then, like we can expect anything non-moronic from Fucker.

  113. 113.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Alison Rose:

    If Steeplejack wasn’t being sarcastic, I’d assume it’s regarding the thing with the russian churches?

    I’m betting Steeplejack was being sarcastic.  But it’s hard to parody the lunatic right (which very definitely includes Fucker) when their reality keeps overtaking parody.  A chryon like that on Faux News wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

  116. 116.

    West of the Cascades

    @Ruckus: I suspect his English has been getting better over the past year (as has his Ukrainian) – and he’s trained as a lawyer and an actor, two professions where being able to rehearse and “perform” lines are essential. Not taking anything away from Zelenskyy here – just that he was able to make a read, rehearsed speech in his third language sound amazingly natural is partly thanks to the skills he’s developed in other professions (besides “President of Ukraine” and “Hero of the Free World,” which he does pretty well too).

  117. 117.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Alison Rose: As I’ve commented before, it comes with the territory. If a human lives long enough, cognitive errors occur. You and I will end up making these same sorts of errors if we’re lucky to live long enough. Heck, I’m already well into it with other verbal recall issues.

  122. 122.

    M31

    I want Nancy to say to him afterwards, “sorry about the “The Ukraine” mistake — can we make it up to you with some extra Patriot missiles?”

  124. 124.

    lowtechcyclist

    @prostratedragon:

    He’s anticipating resistance from people claiming that aiding an offensive must lead to US soldiers on the ground.

    Maybe. But over the past ten months, I’ve frequently heard the claim that it would take months for Ukrainian soldiers and pilots to master our tanks and fighter jets.  So I have to believe that remark was more focused at that bullshit, rather than anything about U.S. soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

  125. 125.

    Alison Rose

    @Chetan Murthy: Kinda confused how people haven’t heard him speak English before–he’s done a bunch of speeches and videos in English over the past ten months, and before that too. But then, I do watch everything he posts, maybe others do not. I actually quite like hearing it, sometimes I like the way he pronounces some of our words better than the way we do it :P

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I have spoken to large groups before and it is not the easiest thing to do. To attempt it with a speech of such importance in another language, under the level of stress of travel and the rational of his coming and doing so well is pretty damn amazing.

  134. 134.

    persistentillusion

    @Ruckus: I got the impression that his speech was written out phonetically for him.  He, at one point, was following along with his finger, line by line.

    Having learned my part in an opera that way as a child, it resonated.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    I had never heard him give a speech in english, as best as I can recall. Certainly not a speech of this magnitude.

    I wonder whose idea it was for him to come speak to congress. I’d bet his.

  137. 137.

    Alison Rose

    @Chief Oshkosh: As far as I can tell, Nancy doesn’t have dementia, and after hearing it called Ukraine for so long, it’s just a dumb error to make. Before introducing someone in a public forum, you make sure you get their name right, their title, etc. Getting the name of his country correct ought to be obvious, and the only people for ten months now who have still said “the Ukraine” are russians and trolls.

  139. 139.

    HumboldtBlue

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Yes, but Joe held his joint presser earlier today, he would just take the spotlight away from Zelensky at this event, I’m pretty sure that’s why he’s not there. This is for Zelensky alone, same when Churchill spoke.

    @gene108:

    Yes, and it’s for that reason he didn’t attend this session, this was about Zelensky, Joe already had his time, I believe this is SOP.

    @West of the Cascades:

    Yeah, they’re fantastic.

  140. 140.

    West of the Cascades

    @WaterGirl: I think the writing on the flag the President presented to the speaker were the signatures of troops in Bahkmut – I’m assuming that from the clip I saw JUST FREAKING YESTERDAY of the flag being presented to the President in that poor city.

  141. 141.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Alison Rose: Totally agreed. I’m certainly no expert, but some of the episodes of his sitcom spoke directly to the aspirations of the citizens to create a better country, a better future for their children.

  145. 145.

    WaterGirl

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I’ve frequently heard the claim that it would take months for Ukrainian soldiers and pilots to master our tanks and fighter jets.  So I have to believe that remark was more focused at that bullshit.

    That is my take, as well.

  147. 147.

    Sure Lurkalot

    What an amazing man and speech. I’m at a loss for words except seriously fuck Tucker Carlson. That Tucker goes into a warm bed every night and President Zelenskyy is flying back to hell is just maddening.

  148. 148.

    Alison Rose

    From the NYT live feed:

    I just noticed that Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, is sitting with Democrats, not Republicans. She’s sitting next to Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia, a fellow member of the Jan. 6 committee.

  149. 149.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack: Yes, I know about that.  A few people here seem to think that is in repose to what Zelensky said about churches.

    So I was asking what Zelensky said about churches, because I don’t recall anything about churches in particular.

  151. 151.

    Torrey

    @Alison Rose: ​ I winced as well. But the fact is that Chief Oshkosh has it right. It helps to recognize that it is precisely the people who have been paying attention to Ukraine for many decades (long-serving politicians, for example) who will have most trouble dropping “the” from the name because their brains are used to calling it “the Ukraine.” Among Americans, it’s those who have only started paying attention to it relatively recently who will find it easiest to call it “Ukraine” because they have had no practice doing otherwise.​

  152. 152.

    Geminid

    @HumboldtBlue: House Republicans may not have the chance to cut off aid to Ukraine for a while. APNews and and other outlets report that the pending Omnibus spending bill includes $45 billion in aid for Ukraine. This is $8 billion more than the Biden administration request for $37 billion (the AP article said that aid this year already totaled $68 billion exclusive of the Omnibus bill funding).

    So it doesn’t look like there will be a House showdown on Ukraine aid until some months from now. A few members have been noisily promising to cut of aid but I think most caucus members have not committed themselves and will stay on the fence as long as they can.

  153. 153.

    Ruckus

    @persistentillusion:

    I just will say I think the entire thing was amazing.

    He’s got to be tired, he’s got to be stressed, he’s got the weight of an entire country fighting for it’s life on his back, and he’s speaking in a foreign language, one of the most important speeches of his life, in front of likely a larger part of the world than we might imagine. And he asked, never begged, never lost perspective, never lost the point.

    That is some damn fine leadership.

  155. 155.

    dr. luba

    @WaterGirl: No.  The vowel sounds are consistent.  It’s two short Os (like the A in call) and the Ys are two short Is (like the I in it). Accent on the third syllable.

    Vo-lo-DY-myr.

  161. 161.

    WaterGirl

    @Alison Rose: On the other hand, President Zelensky looked at Nancy SMASH with what appeared to be fondness, love and respect, and she returned the same.

    I doubt that he even cares for one second that she said The Ukraine.  She fucking came into a war zone to meet with him and show her respect and show the support of the US.

    Which isn’t to say it’s not important to get it right, but if he can let that go, maybe we can, too?

  162. 162.

    Ruckus

    @Dan B:

    And Water Girl!

    Thank you. Obviously didn’t know that. Should have it takes that long to make the kind of effort firm up and actually happen.

    I wonder if Biden asking him had anything to do with trying to get congress to go along with whatever he needs congress to do so Ukraine can win this war.

  163. 163.

    Alison Rose

    @Ruckus: In one of Adam’s updates early-ish in the full-scale war, he said something along the lines of, you can teach someone a lot of things involved in being a president or a war-time leader, but you can’t teach character or integrity, you can’t teach leadership. Those things have to exist within the person, and clearly, they did in Zelenskyy. You can see this in the fact that, true, he maybe hadn’t been the best president before late February, but nearly overnight, he turned into exactly the person the country needed at that moment. No one taught him that, no one trained him in that. That’s who he always was.

  164. 164.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Surprisingly yes, it was a terrible 12 seconds and a difficult 36 hours, and the 4-plus aftershocks have absolutely sucked, but my neighbors and I were very fortunate not have suffered more severe damage. Residents in the southern part of the county got hit hard, we were spared.

    @Geminid:

    Understood, and I think the omnibus ties into the invitation to bring Zelensky over to speak. Again, this is masterful politics.

  169. 169.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    I fully understand. I’ve seen people who lead with grace and thought and people who lead by bullying using their position (I was in the US military after all). He has grace and thought.

  170. 170.

    Layer8Problem

    @NotoriousJRT:   He lives there because it’s away from major population centers and he has clear fields of fire in case hordes of “urban” hooligans track him down.  No aspersions cast here about Maine, I love it.  Except Paul LePage; fuck that guy.  Ok, and Senator Collins.

  172. 172.

    Dan B

    I heard there were empty seats in the GQP section, maybe half.  I’d love to see Russian flags on those seats.

  174. 174.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: I’m sure.  Biden knows politics and has years of experience.  Zelensky seems like he is whip smart and has emotional IQ that’s off the charts.

    Of course they are trying to help even the worst Rs connect with Zelensky and Ukraine AND barring that, to make it damn awkward for them to quit funding the fight for the survival of democracy.

  175. 175.

    Torrey

    I missed the chance to say this in the thread about the press conference with Biden, but I think Zelenskyy was very smart to turn his “thank you for what you gave us; but give more” into–not a joke, exactly, but sort of a running tag line. delivered somewhat humorously. I noticed he did that in his interview with Christiane Amanpour after the infamous phone call with TFG. It’s always delivered with a charming smile as if he’s not really serious, but of course that allows him to remind people that Ukraine really does need more and to do it without seeming to beg and without it becoming tiresome.

  178. 178.

    Amir Khalid

    @Torrey:

    Ukraine is still die Ukraine in German and l’Ukraine in French, which I find a bit annoying. I’m sure there are other languages that haven’t dropped the definite article from Ukraine’s name.

  181. 181.

    prostratedragon

    @lowtechcyclist:  Well i suppose it reduces to the same thing. The choice of moving quickly to the offense would not require US operators. It need not lead to a situation like Vietnam, which made the phrase “mission creep” current.

  182. 182.

    Alison Rose

    @WaterGirl: Thankfully my last name has only one spelling. (Well, I’m sure there is some weirdo out there who spells it differently, but probably 99% of us spell it the one way.) I know that having a first name with four common spellings plus like ten others, I should resign myself to it, but I will not ever, LOL. And I like my name, though every once in a while I do wish Rose were my first name so that people would always get it right :P

  184. 184.

    Torrey

    @persistentillusion:

    Based on some of the mispronunciations, I think he was reading English. His English is pretty good, but it may be that the focus when he learned it was more on writing than speaking, as was common in some European countries some time back, and may still be in many cases

  185. 185.

    Alison Rose

    @JWR: I liked David Corn’s response to that:

    A daddy’s boy who met with a foreign adversary that was attempting to subvert an American election is daring to denigrate a true hero battling Putin & defending his nation from a genocidal war? This may be the dumbest remark ever from Junior. And that’s quite an accomplishment. https://t.co/oLBZ3BpqTH
    — David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 21, 2022

  186. 186.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Alison Rose: Dementia is not the condition being discussed.

    Of course Speaker Pelosi knows the correct name of the country of her honored guest. But language mistakes happen, even in younger people. And they happen more frequently as we age. It’s extremely common. If you learn a phrase or name earlier in life, and then it changes (for whatever reason), then later in life we often inadvertently use the older phrasing. “The Ukraine” coming out of Speaker Pelosi’s mouth is practically the perfect example of this.

  189. 189.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: Zelensky may not have said anything at all about churches, and the Fox chyron is about a weeks-old story that Carlson is exaggerating.

    But when the chyron was quoted my first thought was that Carlson was dog-whistling about Zelensky being Jewish. I certainly would not put it past him. The anti-Semitism on the right is getting more and more blatant.

  190. 190.

    Alison Rose

    @Torrey: It’s also likely just the issue that no matter how well you learn another language, some of the letter combinations and pronunciations are going to be difficult for your mouth to learn. We see that all the time when non-Ukrainians try to say anything in that language. Having heard him speak English many times, both from prepared remarks and sort of off the cuff, it’s mainly just his accent and the differences in sounds, I think.

  191. 191.

    WaterGirl

    @Alison Rose: I do try hard to get everyone’s name / nym right.  beth and satby are both lower case.

    lowtechcyclist is in the doghouse with me because sometimes he’s lowtechcyclist and sometimes he’s Low Tech Cyclist.  What’s a girl to do? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

  192. 192.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Torrey:

    I think he was reading English.

    I agree, and came to that conclusion based on his pronunciation of “bicameral”.  If he’d had phonetic text, he’d have come closer to the correct pronunciation, I would think.

    But whatevs: it was certainly the right decision to give his address in English.

  196. 196.

    sdhays

    @WaterGirl: I’m reminded that Nancy (and her majority) was probably the major reason Trump’s extortion attempt which led to his first impeachment failed. The money he was withholding was finally released, and he saw her go to bat not just for the US, but for Ukraine too. He knows she’s not just an ally, but a kindred spirit.

  197. 197.

    Another Scott

    Excellent speech.

    I enjoyed his dig about the need to “put in, put in” the criminals that started this war.

    I think that supporting Ukraine is more popular in the GQP than folks like Carson want us to believe. Lots of the RWNJs running against popular Democrats here in NoVA were all in on supporting Ukraine. Lots of folks with don’t step on snek vanity license plates have Ukraine flags on their homes. I’m not worried much about continued US support for Ukraine. I worry more about the long ramp-up times and so forth, but I think those will be resolved with time.

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  198. 198.

    Torrey

    @dr. luba: ​
    Thank you for indicating the accented syllable. Since (as you know, but I’m adding this for those who might not) Ukrainian doesn’t reduce unaccented syllables, I often find it difficult to hear which syllable is actually stressed.

  202. 202.

    JWR

    @Alison Rose: Excellent response from Corn. Just the other night, after his response to the J6 report, I was thinking that TFG’s mouth alone s/b declared an Insurrection. Today I add TFGJr to the list of those suffering from Insurrection of the Mouth disease. God I hate these people!

  203. 203.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Alison Rose: Ha! You are saying the same thing the Alison and the Allison I know say all the time (well, functionally say it). And they won’t let me get away with calling them “Al” – even when I remind them that Paul Simon says it’s OK!

  204. 204.

    zhena gogolia

    Okay, I am going with what Dr. Luba says — the accent is on the “DY.” This would be consistent with how Vladimir is pronounced in Russian, with the accent on the “DI.”

  206. 206.

    zhena gogolia

    Wikipedia:

    The Old East Slavic form of the name is Володимѣръ Volodiměr, while the Old Church Slavonic form is Vladiměr. According to Max Vasmer, the name is composed of Slavic владь vladĭ “to rule” and *mēri “great”, “famous” (related to Gothic element mērs, -mir, c.f. Theodemir, Valamir). The modern (pre-1918) Russian forms Владимиръ and Владиміръ are based on the Church Slavonic one, with the replacement of мѣръ by миръ or міръ resulting from a folk etymological association with миръ “peace” or міръ “world”.[2]

  207. 207.

    JWR

    PBS guy says that Boebert, Gaetz and Greene applauded, but didn’t rise when others did. Expected, I know, but still gets my hackles up.

  208. 208.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): This omnibus bill does not raise the debt ceiling and neither does the NDAA.

    Unless Pat Leahy and Richard Shelby had a staff member sneak it in, as in: “Section 84(j)iii-Cranberry harvesting equipment purchased before July 1, 2022 may be depreciated 25% per year and the debt ceiling is now 30 trillion dollars.

  209. 209.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:

    Slight correction.

    Jr is an idiot asshole.

    I can go on and add a few more words along that line which even closer describes him but I think the point is made, any swearing added to his name is appropriate. I can do an entire paragraph of swear words which would enhance his many, many negative aspects. And while normally I dislike denigrating a person with his level of disabilities, he’s earned every single word.

  210. 210.

    jnfr

    I actually started applauding when he showed up and didn’t even notice for a minute. I was genuinely excited.

    His speech was nearly perfect, his emphasis on drawing in both sides of Congress, whether they like it or not was right on point. Whether it will matter in the long run is hard to say but he did his job perfectly.

    I did a standing ovation at the end, right here in my office.

  211. 211.

    Bill Arnold

    @Alison Rose:

    and the only people for ten months now who have still said “the Ukraine” are russians and trolls.

    And a lot of Republicans. Maybe this can be used (wedge-like) to adjust their behavior. (Just thinking out loud.)

  213. 213.

    BritinChicago

    @Alison Rose: Churchill was not so wonderful, at least from my leftish point of view, before WWII or after it. But he was the leader needed during the war.

  215. 215.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Geminid:

    Why the hell not? Don’t Manchin, etc  understand what’s at stake? What good will their wealth be if the global financial system collapses because of a US debt default? McCarthy and the House GOP cannot be trusted

  216. 216.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): B/c too many rich people believe in the “ceteris paribus fallacy”.  Viz. “I can change this one thing without it bringing the whole house of cards down on my head”.

    Also known as “somebody else will surely clean up this mess, and I can still get PAID!”

  218. 218.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Chetan Murthy: And he struggled with “righteous” in the FDR segment.

    People should understand that Ukrainian is a phonetic language – it is pronounced as it is written, letter for letter. You may get the accent on the wrong syllable if you don’t know the word, but it doesn’t have pronunciation landmines like “bough,” “cough” and “dough.”

  220. 220.

    jnfr

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Glad to hear you are okay and checking in. I have another friend who was caught in that earthquake. She’s okay too, with some damage to her apartment. It was all quite a shock.

  221. 221.

    lowtechcyclist

    @WaterGirl: ​

    lowtechcyclist is in the doghouse with me because sometimes he’s lowtechcyclist and sometimes he’s Low Tech Cyclist.

    Hmmm, I hadn’t noticed I was in your doghouse!

    I’m pretty sure it’s been at least two years since I went from being low-tech cyclist here (might have had initial caps, can’t remember) to being lowtechcyclist, like I am on Disqus fora. I think that’s what I am pretty much everywhere but Twitter, where I don’t expect to be much longer anyway.

  222. 222.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I could not say why there was no deal on a debt ceiling increase. I think the Senators and Reps know how important it is. Maybe they have a plan, or maybe they’re just assuming they’ll find a way to cross that bridge when they come to it.

  223. 223.

    Gin & Tonic

    @zhena gogolia: When did I say that? In current spoken Ukrainian the accent will be on the third syllable. Among older emigres from western Ukraine you’ll often hear the accent on the last syllable.

  227. 227.

    WaterGirl

    @lowtechcyclist: Well that was a total exaggeration, but there is truth to it.

    I keep a spreadsheet for the pet calendar, and we include the person’s nym in the naming of the file.  e.g. lowtechcyclist – Roger (if Roger was your pet’s name).

    So I had you in as lowtechcyclist in the spreadsheet and the file names.  But then I saw a comment and it was the upper case separate words thing, so I changed it in all 4 locations.  Then I saw a comment from you the next day and it was lower case again.

    Grrr.

    Only the funny thing is that I checked the spreadsheet just now so I could verify how many instances I had to change, and I discovered that you’re not in there at all!  It’s Low Key Swagger!

    Brain fart.  Anyway, you were in the doghouse in any meaningful way, but now you’re really not in the doghouse because it wasn’t you at all.  :-)

  229. 229.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gin & Tonic:

    People should understand that Ukrainian is a phonetic language – it is pronounced as it is written, letter for letter.

    I’m sure you’re right, but I”ll just note that both my grammar teachers in elementary school,  as well as my French teachers at the Alliance Francaise (when I was 26) assured me the same thing about their (in the first case, *our*) languages.  That’s what “phonics” was all about, right?

    And yet, French has a shit-ton of unpronounced bits of words, and words that can be pronounced more than one way, with different meanings.  Like “fils” (“wires”, pronounced like “feel”) vs. “fils” (“son”, pronouced “feeess”).

  231. 231.

    Alison Rose

    @Chief Oshkosh: My brothers used to call me Al to get a rise out of me when we were little. That I could ignore, but there were also always people who would start calling me Ali after meeting me, even though I always introduce myself as Alison and that’s the only name I have ever gone by. It’s a mite irritating.

  233. 233.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Alison Rose: I remember when I was learning French, and complained a little to my French colleagues about some (to me) inexplicable thing in French pronunciation, they’d reply with some list of English words that were equally mad, like:

    hear,heart,wear, … I forget the rest

    and then there was a list of words with “ie” in it, like financier, and again, I forget the rest.

    But the distinct memory I have, is that they learned these lists in their English classes, b/c the quirks of English had to be memorized, there were no rules they could use to infer them.

  234. 234.

    schrodingers_cat

    @BritinChicago: The millions who perished in the Bengal famine during WWII because of Churchill’s decision to starve India would like a word

    ETA: Without Indian blood and $$ Britain would not have prevailed in the war. Pretty speeches can only get you so far. The soldiers of the Empire are conveniently whitewashed away in the heroic retellings of how Britain won the war.

  237. 237.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @morfydd: As a contrast Fucker Carlson,  the news part of Fox was on at work today at lunch and was just crushing on Zelenskyy, was calling Zelenskyy the greatest Western war time leader since Winston Churchill.   That was interesting to see on Fox.

  240. 240.

    Torrey

    @HumboldtBlue:
    Thank you for posting this link to DakhaBrakha’s music. I see they have a presence on iTunes. I would like to hear more of their music, so I shall be spending some money.​

  241. 241.

    dexwood

    @HumboldtBlue: See them live if you ever get the chance. Fantastic. We’ve seen them four times. They seem to come through New Mexico fairly often. They were in Albuquerque again this past September and held the audience captive.

  243. 243.

    Manyakitty

    @lowtechcyclist: i think in this case the President would add political tension to what ended up a masterful balancing act. I especially loved the human barricade/reception team/thingy made of senators and congresscritters.

  244. 244.

    jonas

    How some of these anti-Ukrainian Repukes even dare show their *faces* in this sacred hall tonight is beyond me. *Spits on ground* Zelenskyy did a masterful job and tied his country’s struggle into a larger historical narrative about the fight for liberty and democracy throughout history, from the American revolution through WWII to the present day. The idea that there are *Republicans* — I mean honest to Dog people calling themselves Republicans — who roll their eyes at this and secretly cheerlead for Russia is just mind-boggling. I mean, it’s not surprising as most of them were giggling with delight every time Trump donned his kneepads and went in to confer with Putin at some summit meeting, but damn.

  249. 249.

    Andrya

    @WaterGirl:   I know I’ve posted this stuff before, but hopefully the jackals will forgive me for repeating myself.

    The russian Orthodox Church inside russia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vladimir Putin.  Patriarch Kirill, the head of the russian Orthodox Church in russia, has endorsed the attack on Ukraine because (he says) the Ukrainians are “satanic” and have Gay Pride Parades (!!??!!).  I’m sure the jackals will remember that Patriarch Kirill was photographed wearing a $39,000 watch (just what Jesus would do, right?).

    Ukraine, unlike russia, has religious diversity.  In 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (more or less the pope of Eastern Orthodoxy) declared the Ukrainian Orthodox church “autocephalous” (independent of Moscow).  As a result, there are two versions of Eastern Orthodoxy in Ukraine:  the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (independent, due to Patriarch Bartholomew’s decree) and the Russian Orthodox Church (subservient to Moscow).  Needless to say, the second group is a problem for the Ukrainian government.  There are also Eastern Rite Catholics, Christian Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.  All of these groups except russian Orthodoxy are suppressed/persecuted in russia.

    So, here’s what’s behind tucker carlson’s statement:  The russian Orthodox Church in russia (the one that reports to Patriarch Kirill) has been acting as an active agent of the russian government.  The Ukrainian government has said “you can’t do this any more”.  tucker carlson (a total slime) has been equating suppressing a church acting as an active agent of an enemy in wartime with an attack on Christianity.  Not true.  The independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Protestants, and the Eastern Rite Catholics are doing just fine.

  250. 250.

    jonas

    @Steeplejack: ​
      Ukraine recently took action to close churches and other religious organizations still tied to the Russian Orthodox Church, which had become more or less a propaganda arm of Putin’s Kremlin preaching the destruction of Ukraine and its people. It’s not a legitimate religious institution — it’s the state cult of Putin’s neo-tsarist regime. Given that Russian Orthodoxy claims roots in the conversion of Kyivan Rus in the 10th century, and that this connection is part of Russia’s mythology about why Ukraine should be destroyed and reunited with Russia, they’ve been screaming bloody murder about Zelenskyy’s action, which has also been amplified by Kremlin-aligned disinformation outlets in the West. Such as Tucker Carlson’s show.

  251. 251.

    sab

    JD Vance said he didn’t give a shit about Ukraine, and then he won the election as Senator for a state with the highest Ukarainian population in the US.

  253. 253.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @sab: Late to the thread, I know, but…I wonder how much that had to do with publication of the leak the week before the election of that draft circulated (the previous summer) among leftish Democratic Congressfolks (who should’ve known better, shame on you Jamie Raskin!) about backing off support for Ukraine? How much you wanna bet the leaker was a Thuglican mole in the apparatus just waiting for the best time to make it public?

Comments are closed.