@louis

Because of the "and hide it" part... Seems to have been a great tactic that was effective on you based on your response

@freemo Maybe so, but it seems a bit far-fetched to me, especially what with their pushing so much funding to Ukraine as well.

If the Democrats are under the thumb of anyone, current evidence would seem to point to Israel, for whom they've shown far more deference.

@louis the Democrats specifically put rules on Ukraine that they couldn't advance attacks into Russia... Seems the Ukraine example is the perfect example of them trying to appear like they are against Russia while actually actively working towards their interests.

@freemo They lifted those restrictions a couple weeks ago, interestingly. Ukraine has now launched US missiles against Russian targets.

And, yeah, I disagree with that initial restriction too, but I see the logic: trying to do just enough to stop Russia without getting NATO dragged into a full-on land war. It's a difficult balancing act.

@louis and the timing again fits perfectly into Russia agenda of wanting the Democrats to appear against Russia while working for them..

They wait until Ukraine has no chance of victory left of any kind, them lift restrictions at the last minutes before defeat giving just enough plausibility to think Russia isn't pulling the strings yet in no way actually putting Russia at risk as they are now set to win the war anyway.

@freemo If they had so much influence, why wouldn't they just prevent the aid packages from the beginning so they wouldn't have to throw their entire army through the meat grinder in Ukraine for over a year?

I certainly think Russia is trying to influence our political sphere, but much like everything else Russia does, it's only about 10% Machiavellian and the other 90% is buffoonery.

@louis

> If they had so much influence, why wouldn't they just prevent the aid packages from the beginning so they wouldn't have to throw their entire army through the meat grinder in Ukraine for over a year?

Two reasons 1) They wouldnt want aide packages to end because exterminating their people isnt their objective, they want to own the people not kill them. 2) If they did that you wouldnt have an argument to use to convince people that Russia isnt involved, the whole point is that they need to do things that make it look like they are against Russia without actually doing so, and this is a perfect example of that.

@louis

Also, when normalized of all the countries donating to the ukraine for humanitarian aide the usa ranks 29th. In other words, America was never really giving them much in that regard anyway.

@freemo "when normalized" lmao.

I'm assuming you're normalizing against the donor country's GDP? I'm sure if you asked Ukraine if they'd prefer 2% of America's help or 90% of Ghana's, their answer would come immediately, because such normalization is meaningless in this circumstance.

@louis I normalized by donation per person, even when you look at unnormalized data america still isnt at the top.

Plus as I said Russia **wants** humanitarian aide. Killing off the population makes them far less valuable once you own them than if the people are alive and physically healthy. Its the military complex they want to destroy not the people.

@freemo Still doesn't make sense. A prolonged war will always have a bigger body count. If they were trying to minimize disruption, they'd go for the blitzkrieg. Which, by all account, appears to be exactly what they attempted to do and then fumbled.

@freemo That kind of thinking strikes me as overly-conspiratorial and direly lacking in evidence. It's certainly possible, but I think Occam would take issue with it.

@louis

Oh there is tons of evidence, but since no one is doing any investigations its on the order of evidence before the republican involvement was intentionally done via the government itself investigating it.

We already know damn well they have invested tons and tons of money to manipulate the left to their agenda and is doing exactly this on various levels we know about, and like the republicans theobvious connection will only come when someone bothers to investigate it, which they wont because russia is in control. The one thing that would fit their agenda to investigate, the republicans, were.

@freemo Personally, I don't think they "control" either party, other than a few useful-idiots like Tim Pool who take their money without even realizing it.

I do think they're involved in deep influence ops in the US, but my grasp of it is that it's largely geared more towards the masses than the electeds, riling us up and inflaming tensions and the like.

@louis Control never looks like someone literally controlling every single play.. control just means their so easy to manipulate you effectively get to dictate their actions... Which is exactly the case.

There was never any conspirpacy theory to get americans to buy into point #1 and buy the lie about a two party system. They just manipulate the scenes from FB and a few key players and its more than enough to have complete control because they are literally that easy to manipulate.

I mean all you have to do is get the right to just suggest something moderately sane and normal and the left will immediately do the exact opposite no matter how idiotic it may be. Controlling the left is so trivial a toddler with some pocket change could do it.