Don Surber donsurber@substack.com
“Surprise, surprise. He is a dictator, just like Putin.”
AUG 31
Breitbart reported, “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded that taxpayers in the United States and European Union send the country even more aid if the West wishes for elections to be held next year.
“In an interview published by the president’s office on Sunday evening, Zelensky said that he would be willing to hold elections despite the ongoing martial law amid the war with Russia, so long as the U.S. and EU bankroll the voting process.”
So much for the Ukraine war being about democracy. This is not a war to save civilization. It is just another military spending carnival with kickbacks and money freshly laundered and scented with lilac. Death in war is only for little people. Assassination? For Zelensky, killing Putin would be killing the goose that laid millions of golden eggs. And F-16s.
The corrupt clown’s spin is that holding an election in the middle of a war is risky.
He said, “I told [Lindsay Graham]: if the United States and Europe give us financial support . . . I’m sorry, I will not hold elections on credit, I will not take money from weapons and give it to elections either. But if you give me this financial support, if the parliamentarians realize that we need to do this, then let’s quickly change the legislation and, most importantly, let’s take risks together.”
America held a presidential election in 1944 in the midst of World War II.
Hitler didn’t.
America held a presidential election in 1864 in the midst of the Civil War.
The confederate states didn’t.
The Brits not only held elections in World War II but twice they changed their prime ministers. They voted out Neville Chamberlain as prime minister in 1940 and voted out his successor, Winston Churchill, in 1945 just weeks before the Japanese surrendered.
Free elections are not Ukrainian green shirt’s thing. One of Zelensky’s first acts after Putin invaded was to ban the opposition parties. He later closed Russian Orthodox churches. Now he wants to share the risk — huh? — with us. What risk? There is no risk. He will get re-elected because it is a crime to oppose him.
I don’t care if he has an election. I don’t care if Putin takes over his country. I don’t care if a sinkhole swallows Kyiv. Ukraine is Zelensky’s problem, not mine and certainly not NATO’s. The only reason we are involved in Ukraine is Putin taking over is a threat to the bribes Biden and others in Washington collect through surrogates.
Zelensky wants to suspend the election? As an L-Dotter said at Lucianne.com, “Surprise, surprise. He is a dictator, just like Putin.”
And that, dear friends, is a cold hard fact because tyranny is the default position for government. Banana republics are the rule, not the exception. Oh, a few democratic-styled governments pop up now and then. Certainly the British from Queen Elizabeth I to Queen Elizabeth II were free for the most part. Oh they had a civil war. So did we. Britain’s colonialism was exemplary as the empire birthed Western-style democracies in North America, Africa, Australia and the Indian subcontinent.
But World War II began Britain’s decline as it shed nation after nation and demoted itself to a commonwealth. The sun has set on the British Empire. We shall not anything close to it in the next millennium.
War is good for politicians. Putin’s approval rate is 80%.
Zelensky’s is 90%.
The first President Bush had an 89% approval rate thanks to the Gulf War in 1991. The war ended and he lost re-election the next year.
What is the incentive to end the war if it costs you the presidency? Ending a previous president’s war is not necessarily a loser. But there is no reason for Zelensky to end this war because it would bounce him from power, should there ever be an election again in Ukraine.
Ukrainians are dying for a cause — ’cause Zelensky will be replaced if the war ever ends.
Newsweek reported, “The vast majority of Ukrainians approve of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s handling of the ongoing war with Russia, data shows, with his popularity skyrocketing shortly after Moscow invaded the war-torn country last year.
“A year after full-scale conflict broke out in February 2022, 58% of Ukrainians strongly approved of Zelensky’s navigation of the war, data published by Statista shows. A further third of respondents somewhat approved of Zelensky’s leadership, according to the data for February 2023.
“Just 4% of those polled said they somewhat disapproved, with 3% responding that they strongly disapproved. An additional 2% found the question difficult to answer, or didn’t respond.
“The figures were broadly the same as in June 2022, according to the data. However, Zelensky’s approval rates over the past year are significantly higher than the pre-war figures. In March 2021, just 12% strongly approved and 26% somewhat approved of Zelensky’s actions, with 53% disapproving to some degree.”
Zelensky said, “We need help from Europe here, because Ukrainians today are mostly in the European Union. Polling stations must be opened there so that people can come. 7 million people have to vote. We do not have such infrastructural capacities —we need to provide appropriate opportunities there.”
So under his leadership, nearly 17% of the nation’s 42 million people have left the country to be safe. We gave him $100 billion. What is he doing with all that money?
But according to Mitt Romney, the blank check is worth every dollar YOU pay.
He said, “By the way, spending the equivalent of about 5% of our defense budget, and in fact, even less than 5% of our annual defense budget, to help Ukrainians is the best defense investment our country has ever made. We have no human losses in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are fighting heroically against Russia, whose nuclear weapons are aimed at us. Thus, we are reducing and destroying the Russian army for a very small amount, compared to what we spend on other defense items. Weak Russia is good. This is the best thing that can be done for America, to make sure that the people with nuclear weapons aimed at us are getting weaker.”
Hey Mittens, the 1980s called and it wants its Just For Men hair dye back. If this is such a good investment, why not have Bain Capital invest its money? BlackRock too. Paul Pelosi. Bill Gates. Mittens has net worth of $450 million. Why isn’t he investing it in Ukraine?
Congress told taxpayers we couldn’t afford to pay $25 billion to build a wall to protect our southern border but now our congressmen say we can give Zelensky four times that amount to protect his borders.
I was startled by RINOney’s argument that “we have no human losses in Ukraine” as if Ukrainians are not human beings.
The best thing we could do for the people of Russia and Ukraine is for the United States to step up and broker peace. That won’t happen because everyone in DC is getting rich off this endeavor — as evidenced by the bipartisan support for this war — and neither Putin nor Zelensky has any reason to give up a war that keeps them in the presidential palace.
I say to hell with the Ukrainian election. It would be all for show. Why should I pay for it?
