1. Mark my words: The Demos will retain control of the Senate, Schumer will remain as majority leader, and they will take back control of the House. 

Hakeem Jeffries will be the next speaker.

2. You really think Donald will win this thing? After he has divided the Republican party like no other candidate has done.  Here's a screen shot from my Facebook page after the vote back in April on $61b of new aid to Ukraine.

Who is likely to be Mitch's replacement? Does Mitch get a say? Lol. He's retiring isn't he?

I like your optimism BFR I wish I had more of it, I think it's going to be close.

Gimme a minute. He can offer his recommendation at the least.

Looks like either John T. or John B.

Hmhm.

Mitch was a strong supporter of Ukraine, I'm 99% sure that as long as Trump loses, Ukraine has the votes, then it only comes down to who the Speakers/Leaders are for each chamber, for them fuckers to actually put the bill to a vote, Lol. Not pull a Mike Johnson and refuse for months before finally getting off his ass and doing it.

I'm not worried about Hakeem (obviously) or Schumer (obviously) and I don't think I need to worry about Johnson post-Trump (but maybe Republicans backstab their 2nd House Speaker in a row and get a new one, Lmfao) so then I suppose it's whoever replaces Mitch (if Republicans take Senate) who could refuse to put Ukrainian bills to the floor for voting.

The situation in the Middle East is probably of regional importance only, whereas the situation in Ukraine is of global importance, as well as major regional importance in Europe. That should already explain a lot, especially when you consider the number of users from Europe and the Middle East here - oh, and the US, to whom the war in Ukraine is probably more consequential.

On a personal level, I live in a relatively small country neighbouring Russia, so the war in Ukraine has existential importance to my country. Additionally, we have conscription here, so the worst-case scenario is that I die defending my country against Russia because it wasn't stopped in time. It's a very unlikely scenario, but there isn't anything even remotely comparable to me about the situation in the Middle East.

Also, I have only so much time to worry about the state of the world. Israel isn't the first or the last crisis that deserves attention, but I don't have time to attend to them all especially when I'm unlikely to make much of a difference. I vote in any elections I can though, and hope to affect our foreign politics too, but there's only so much a single person can achieve even that way.

Shouldn't even answer such a troll question. Nobody can tell me he doesn't understand why Russia attacking an European country and threatening Europe and USA with nuclear weapons is a bigger deal for most in this forum as Israel vs. some groups in the Middle East.

That simply has to be a troll

The situation in Israel is very awful, but I don't think there's an abundance of people here that are directly or indirectly affected by it. Whereas Russia is in a number of people's backyards, they have even poisoned people on British soil, and affected American elections. Russia also has nuclear weapons. As horrific as Israel is, it's not particularly going to have a direct affect on the vast majority of people here, whereas Russia has a global effect.

I know other people have already said all of that. What I really want to know is:

If you're genuinely asking a question, why is it so hard to ask it honestly without flaming?

If you're just trolling, what exactly do you get out of that? 

No direct effect, but it will have worse long term effects. Trust in western journalism has reached a low point, lying and publishing propaganda has become the norm. International and humanitarian law are further destroyed day by day. Freedom of speech and right to protest are being challenged in the US and Europe alike. The West is being exposed as the colonial hypocrites they are, meanwhile China and the Global South are waking up.

Israel has 100x the direct effect on American elections compared to Russia's minor meddling. Netanyahu pretty much killed Biden's re-election chances, hence he had to step down. Harris quickly amassed many major donors, no doubt with many strings attached. Aipac has a firm broad hold on the US' political system. The only positive for Harris (in foreign politics) is that Trump will be much worse.

There's also that US and in part Europe are responsible for the current escalations in the ME. An inconvenient truth, challenging long standing world views of the West being the 'good' guys and Muslims/Palestinians bloodthirsty terrorists. State terrorism by Israel is even being applauded by some in the West. The conflict is challenging the Western view of history in the ME.


Russia-Ukraine is a much more straightforward conflict. Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia needs to leave Ukraine alone and give Crimea back. The West is (mostly) helping Ukraine while sanctioning Russia. The opposite of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
It's much 'nicer' to support your country giving military aid to Ukraine, than see your country denying the live unfolding genocide and ethnic cleansing.



And yes, Russia is in Europe's backyard. The red scare is what a lot of people grew up with, including me. Turns out, most of it was embellished. Russia isn't that powerful and definitely doesn't want to start a nuclear war, although Putin likes to threaten with one daily.

I do believe that if the West had embraced Russia more during/after the collapse of the USSR we might not have had someone like Putin in power today. But it happened, now he's got to be dealt with before he starts anymore invasions trying to rebuild his vision of the USSR.

As for the West now, stop dragging your feet, give Ukraine what it needs to expel Russia. Send troops if necessary. We could do it in the Bosnian war. (although still couldn't prevent genocide)