politics

I wish I had remembered that at the time.

They never had them.

I think there are two factors. First, during the 2016 election, Russia hacked the DNC servers and released the data (heavily salted with disinformation, I'm sure) to damage Clinton's campaign. Less well known is that they also hacked the RNC servers. That data was never released. I am quite comfortable in assuming that there was some real dirt in there on some Republican officeholders. It would certainly explain the complete about face on Trump that many of them had. One day they were publicly ripping into Trump and the next they were sucking up to him. Putin having dirt on people like Gaetz, etc., could also explain some of their current attitudes on Ukraine.

The second factor is more about the Republican voters but applies to some of the more insane Republican office holders too. Trump was publicly calling on Russia to go after his political enemies during the 2016 election which one would assume would alienate anti-Russian Republican voters. It didn't though. Those that drank the Trump Flavor-Aid chose to support Trump no matter what. They went all in on the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and since Russia was going after Hillary, Russia was now their friend. There were literally people walking around Trump rallies wearing shirts that said, "Better Russian than Democrat."

This attitude still holds today. These profoundly deluded people really think that supporting Russia and opposing the Democratic administration's agenda is somehow patriotic. It is frankly terrifying.

aside from them being literally subject to Russian propaganda and being too stupid to realise, the other factor I think is quite simple.

they think its "woke" to not want Ukraine to fall. that's pretty much it

Because uncle Donny and Putin are friends and he was going to let them roll through. Russia helped build/fund the MAGA movement to sow division in America. Of course they don't support Ukraine.

It's also really confusing because even if you don't have any particular affinity for Ukraine, even a Republican must acknowledge that functionally Russia and China are only things that are even remotely close to peer adversaries, and any military hardware we send Ukraine is going to get dumped directly into damaging that adversary. It's basically one of the most efficient military investments you could get right now. If you're even a bit pro military, you should be pro Ukraine.

Well to paraphrase several preacher, "Putin at least has state church" and the gold gem "Putin at least isn't protrans or gay".

Then you have some people that are against because Dem are for it. It is literally just for them about not agreeing with the other on ANYTHING.

only 60 billion

Heh. "Only."

Damn, I could use just one measly billion.

It isn't about where it is being spent, but that it is being spent. They are told to see it as unnecessary spending that's taking tax payer's dollars away. They, of course, conveniently forget how much they blew in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mainly because the amount spent on Ukraine is a drop in the sea compared to what they spent.

To be fair, they’re all ancient enough to be in the “high risk” category. 😂

Well that equipment will be replaced though. Just as Russia is digging out out their T-55s from storage the US military likes to have the capability to do something similar if things get desperate. Just with stuff that's 30 years not 60 years old like Russia is doing.

But they'd need to replace their current equipment with new stuff, they're current equipment will be put into storage.

And yeah they'd want to do this anyway as they don't want to get into a situation like Russia where their stored equipment is 60 years old. So you're kinda right, but if they're replacing equipment a little sooner than planned then there's a calculation for the cost that involves depreciation formulas and the like. Note this was the cause of that accounting error they had recently which was an insane amount of money. They didn't misplace money or misplace equipment, they simply miscalculated the depreciation of the old equipment.

So there is a cost despite it being old equipment. It's not strictly correct to say it's free, though it would be even more incorrect to say it's the same cost as new equipment. The cost is somewhere in between, and it's complicated enough to place a value on it that the DoD screwed it up.

I recognised this at once.

Perfect use of this passage.

Kudos.

Agreed