This really takes the cake, coal baron Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) recently led a bipartisan senate group in a visit to Ukraine. And what did they do once they got there? Well, here’s Joe Manchin and country music star Brad Paisley singing “Country Roads” in Kyiv:
Someone needs to take them both home to the place where they belong…an old folks home in West Virginia. Maybe with padded walls.
This performative nonsense is right up there with Sean Penn giving his Oscar to Zelensky and John Stewart presenting a Nazi with an award at Disney World. And I almost forgot about when Joe Biden visited and they turned on the air raid sirens for impact when there were no Russia aircraft in the area. The amount of cringeworthy propaganda in support of the proxy war is incredible.
Senator Manchin was accompanied on his trip to Ukraine by Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). There seemed to be no real purpose to the trip other than to continue to push the narrative that funding Ukrainian Nazis is good. They all made statements to that effect.
“We’re gonna make sure that we’re here through this entire fight, and this entire victory that the Ukrainian people will have. In my lifetime I’ve never seen the United States of America in a more just war than what this one is.” - Senator Joe Manchin
Joe Manchin isn’t the oldest person in the senate, he is young by Diane Feinstein standards, but he is still 75 years old. He was born in 1947, so he’s seen a few US wars in his day. Not a single one of them has been just and the proxy war in Ukraine has to rank high on the list of unjustified and unnecessary wars. After all, this is a war where the US is openly funding and arming Nazis. But Joe Manchin is a good democrat and he’s happy to be in lockstep with Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, Victoria Nuland and the military industrial media complex on this one.
Also his campaign did receive $736,399 from Energy sector PACs and $156,500 from Defense PACs in 2022. Both these sectors profit greatly from war. There is nothing quite like the US and their system of legalized bribery in Congress.
“For more than a year, the people of Ukraine have stood against the unspeakable atrocities unleashed against them by Vladimir Putin. Ukraine is an inspiration to the world, and it was an honor to meet with President Zelenskyy to reiterate our unwavering bipartisan support for their sovereignty and fledgling democracy.” - Senator Lisa Murkowski
It is almost as if the CIA tried to fit every single talking point into one statement. I’m surprised she missed out on “unprovoked.” Of course, they’re all lies, but that is what politicians are good at, lying to reinforce false narratives. In 2022, Murkowski received $163,000 from Defense PACs and $705,433 from Energy PACs. Strangely similar numbers to Manchin…it is hard to tell which one is the Republican and which is the Democrat from their funding. There isn’t really a difference when it comes to corporate money.
During her visit to Ukraine, Murkowski said, “What we have put forward into this fight to support Ukraine is worth every penny.” Does that include the $400 million embezzled by top Ukrainian officials as reported by Seymour Hersh? In April 2022, CNN reported that the US does not have any way to know where the weapons shipped to Ukraine end up. A CBS documentary that has since been pulled said that only 30-40% of the weapons ever eached the frontline. But for Murkowski, every penny that goes into the black hole of corrupt Ukraine is worth it.
For the sake of democracy, freedom, and our national security, Putin must lose this war. When I return to the Senate, I’ll continue working with my colleagues and our military leaders to get Ukraine the support they need to win. - Senator Mark Kelly
This was from a tweet by Senator Kelly. It’s rather vague. From a military standpoint, Ukraine can’t win the war no matter the number of weapons shipped there from the US. Is Kelly going to lobby for nukes to Ukraine? That wouldn’t win the war, but it could end civilization. A small price to pay for democracy, freedom, and our national security.
Senator Kelly, a relative newcomer to the grift of Washington, did not take very much PAC money. He only took $15,000 from Energy PACs and zero from Defense. However, he did take $367,236 from individuals in Foreign and Defense Policy.
The United States government is wholly owned by corporate interests. The people have no say when it comes to arming Ukraine. With 58% of the US living paycheck to paycheck and 70% feeling stressed by their finances according to the latest survey from CNBC, how much difference would over $100 billion make if spent on the working class? According to OxFam, it would cost $37 billion per year to end world hunger. The latest estimates say it would cost around $30 billion per year to end homelessness in the US using a federal voucher program.
Would it not be more advantageous to freedom and democracy to end world hunger and homelessness than to arm Nazis in Ukraine? How much more money should be funneled into offshore accounts of Zelensky and other corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs while the working class starves? At the end of the day, we should just be content to know that Joe Manchin can’t sing and Zelensky is going to be very rich if he survives the war.
Americans just want to feel good about war again. It's why we make so many movies about WWII and so few about Vietnam. After a half-century of unjust interventions and invasions, we found a conflict that, if you don't look to hard, can be portrayed as "good guys vs. bad guys". For both political and cultural purposes, Americans want to support Ukraine so we can tell ourselves we're on the "right" side of a war for once.
It is literally making me ill, and ready for that next nervous breakdown. It is so repulsive and perverse, it triggers my PTSD to watch people just sit by and let it all happen.