“The United States will provide Ukraine with a new $500 million infusion of aid to help the government in Kyiv continue paying salaries, pensions and providing services, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday. Yellen detailed the assistance following her meeting Wednesday with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Finance Minister Sergiy Marchenko, saying it was necessary to help their government continue to function…
‘The needs of Ukraine are urgent, and we plan to deploy this direct aid to Ukraine as soon as possible to be used on most urgent needs,’ Yellen said. NDTV.com
“In March, 32 states will begin cutting food stamp benefits for more than 30 million Americans, leading toward what some are referring to as a “hunger cliff.” This will mean that poor households will lose about $82 a month in SNAP [also known as food stamps] benefits, even as food prices continue to soar from inflation. (The other 18 states had already ended their emergency food assistance programs.)…The number of infants in Mississippi being treated for congenital syphilis has jumped by more than 900% over the last five years. In 2021, the state was given a federal grant of $18.4 million to hire public health care workers. It spent only $3.6 million.” Jeffrey St. Clair, Roaming Charges, Counterpunch
If you complain about the billions of dollars going to prop up Ukraine’s corrupt and dictatorial government (pay their pensions, for example) you are branded a “Putin Apologist” by both democrats (particularly) and republicans alike. What gives?
Many Americans are critical of Biden’s scheming on Ukraine because they never got to have a vote in this multibillion dollar transfer of wealth and machinery to one of the most corrupt nations in the world. If ever there were a case for a national referendum in the USA, it would have been over this issue. Biden came to the podium one day about a year ago and essentially said:
“The USA is sanctioning everything Russian and propping up our newest puppet, Zelensky. If you don’t like it, lump it.”
Republicans hate the thought of the hungry (children, too) and homeless in America getting any sort of handout from the US federal government, but they support handouts to a half-baked racist country called Ukraine which is happily ripping off US taxpayers with the blessing of America’s most virulent Russia haters like Anthony Blinken and Victoria Nuland, who are akin to sharks during a feeding frenzy when discussing anything Russian.
Guess what? Roughly 24 percent of US enlisted personnel are “food insecure” and encouraged by the Pentagon to apply for SNAP benefits through the United States Department of Agriculture.
“This summer [2022], DoD released a roadmap, Strengthening Food Security in the Force, which reveals that a shocking 24 percent of active duty service members experience some level of food insecurity, and it acknowledges the connections between hunger and mission readiness, troop retention and recruitment. It should be noted that this survey was done before the recent spike in inflation, so it is likely that this estimate is low.” American Enterprise Institute
That 24 percent figure doesn’t account for the million plus US veterans who depend on those SNAP “hand outs” to get by. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported that,“ SNAP Helps 1.2 Million Low-Income Veterans, Including Thousands in Every State.”
Oh, and hose hungry active duty enlisted personnel are the ones who are going to go and fight the Russians in Europe, if Biden and Zelensky get their way.
And get this: We learn from the Watson Institute at Brown University the costs to care for veterans of post 9-11 wars are in the trillions.
“Between 2001 and 2050, the total costs of caring for veterans of the post-9/11 wars are estimated to reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion. This includes the amount already paid in disability and related benefits and medical care, as well as the projected future cost of lifetime disability benefits and healthcare for those who have served in the military during these wars.”
How can we afford to give billions to Ukraine in the face of problems like these, not to mention antagonizing China in the Process?
War is coming for us all because of us all, it seems.
I am wondering if “Corn Pop” Biden would have authorized an F-22 to shoot down Lawn Chair Larry. One of Biden’s rationales for ordering shoot-downs was that the 2023 balloons were in airspace reserved for commercial aircraft (I wonder too what kind of medal those F-22 pilots were awarded). Anyway, according to Wikipedia, "On July 2, 1982, Larry Walters made a 45-minute flight in a homemade aerostat made of an ordinary patio chair and 45 helium-filled weather balloons. The aircraft rose to an altitude of about 16,000 feet (4,900 m), drifted from the point of liftoff in San Pedro, California, and entered controlled airspace near Long Beach Airport. During the landing, the aircraft became entangled in power lines, but Walters was able to climb down safely."
Zelensky is sure to appear at the Oscar Ceremony in March. Everyone will stand and applaud this man who is nothing but a wartime tyrant. How could he not be ruthless in this role? And his ruthlessness is on display in the manner in which he sacrifices his soldiers in battles they can’t possibly win, or in the elimination of all things Russian in Ukraine. He and his wife live the good life, sheltered and protected by his military only because he is the perfect pitchman. I can’t help but think of Jerry Lewis and his telethon each time I see Zelensky, tin cup in hand.
Don’t be surprised to see Zelensky throw out the ceremonial first pitch this coming American Major League Baseball season.
Critics
Others say that critics of Zelensky are little more than “Useful Idiots” of Putin. But to those critics Zelensky represents a waste of money, billions spent—or lost in the shadows— that could be used in the United States for SNAP, to improve rail safety, or even build a high speed rail that the US currently does not have, but China does. Better still, those billions could be used on healthcare improvements sorely needed in the USA.
Instead, we are once again aching for war. In fact, we’ve already got it by proxy. General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is fond of saying that the Russians have failed in Ukraine.
Maybe so, but he has got losses in Iraq and Afghanistan on his record, nothing to be proud about. And yet Milley and all the other generals who punched tickets during those wars are not held accountable. They and the policymakers they obeyed brought no credit to their service, only a $2.5 trillion dollar VA bill.
This Ukraine war was never about that country’s independence, freedom, or the future of mankind. You can pull up all the maps you like showing NATO expansion and speeches from the West claiming that Russia wants a grand empire like the old Soviet Union. All these speeches are complete nonsense.
Putin was sucker punched by the USA/West. The American people took an uppercut from Biden who pretended to be a liberal and devote Catholic. He is neither.
US leaders don’t care about the people of Palestine, Ohio, who will ultimately be polluted to death by chemicals from a recent train derailment in an accident that may well have been mitigated if Biden had enforced regulations on brake safety, as St. Clair reported in Roaming Charges at Counterpunch.
They just don’t care.
“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.” Albert Camus
John Stanton can be reached at captainkong22@gmail.com