I find the narrative of some very bizarre - the idea of Russia as the victim as perpetrated by Putin really is far fetched, yet through saying it enough, there are some extremes on both sides of the political aisle that seem to believe this. Putin choose the path he choose when it came to dealing with the rest of Europe. He put his self enrichment and ego above all else. Russia had a lot of institutional advantages when Putin took power, and he squandered them by taking an isolationist and not open approach with his neighbors. There were a lot of very well educated and trained people in Russia, and now most of them are old or dead with no one to replace them. It is a sad situation for those that live in Russia.
Nope - Pappy was sadly, you can look it up..... I was surprised when I learned about it..... lets just say he loved to grab the ass and body of the young ladies.
This was widely reported, they tried to play it off as "dementia, in a wheelchair" , which may have been partly true, but then a lot of people came forward from way back when. I don't know if this excuse “has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner.” is really flies? I mean, if I went around doing that I'd expect to be maced/sent to HR/escorted out by security in about 5 minutes.
You don't go around patting the rears of 16-25 year old women if you are a man..... I didn't see him patting Dan Quale's rear. He lived in a different time - he grew up rich, was successful early and got away with a lot that he shouldn't have and won't again.... women in the 1950'-1980's likely just took it because he was a man of power and got away with what he wanted. I had multiple older people that knew Bill Clinton when he was a teenager say that he used to be ****** by an older music teacher and one of his stepfathers' friends. He seemed fine with it and got away with a lot for a long time being a powerful and smart man.
the ole grandpa/good natured “patt-patt” when executed is diabolically a thing of beauty. Wrong but innocent. Sure you see it but it wasn’t meant ‘that’ way….right? I witnessed this first hand with one of those being discussed. It was behind closed doors in a very private and limited meeting. It was a nice and social meeting and it didn’t dawn on me until years later when I was talking about this meeting with someone and I thought to myself, holy ****…you old dog. To be fair, future Mrs donkey thought it was all “sweet”, to this day
@Space Ghost when the libertarian trolls tell you putin invaded cuz ukraine and nato it's always bs. The recorded call from macron to putin makes clear that macron told putin biden would personally meet with putin and veto any ukraine NATO issue. It was always about recreating Soviet Union It was never about NATO or USA but the donks got fooled @LosPollosHermanos
People forget that in the lead up to the invasion that Macron was putting his own reelection at risk by going to Moscow to try to get a diplomatic solution. Also NATO requires unanimity for allowing new members. Turkey and Hungary held up for a year Sweden and Finland’s admission. Any single NATO member could hold up Ukraine’s admission.
But @Space Ghost role model David sacks claimed biden wanted ukraine to join NATO and that's why Russia attacked in self defense???
Putin: Way back in the beginning, Catherine II agreed Ukraine was part of Russia blah blah blah so therefore Ukraine is rightfully ours. Also Putin: NATO continues to expand and encroach towards Russia, a violation of the blah blah blah agreement Astros123 and the rest of the war mongers: Putin is a liar and you can never trust what he says. Also Astros123: This is yet another continuation of the bizarre faulty logic displayed by some. One day, Russia is completely inept, economy is going to fail due to sanctions, military is trash, his allies are turning against him blah blah blah then the next moment, we need to throw everything we have at Russia because they are going to march on all of Europe to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union. And yet again, another delusional thought process -- Putin is a liar and you can never trust him, BUTTTTT he said he wanted to restore the former glory of the USSR, so Imma trust him on that one but ignore everything else ... because I can't trust him. Its. A. Proxy. War. Nobody is trying to conquer Europe. Nobody is trying to destroy the US. Putin knows Europe is extremely vulnerable and the Biden administration is largely incompetent in foreign affairs. There is a growing trend in political sects that wants the US to take a big step back in foreign affairs. But our geriatric leaders, who grew up with this Captain Save-A-Hoe mentality, that w/out the United States at the helm of every global issue, the world would fall back into a dark age. That just isn't the case. The world has since recovered. Russia, China, India, EU are all big boys who can speak for themselves. They don't need the US being boomer grandpa telling everyone how to live. All of these old people in governments all over the world need to resign and go away. Some of us are tired of fighting their stupid squabbles from 50 years ago.
https://www.marianne.net/monde/euro...re-offensive-ce-que-cache-le-virage-de-macron The article is now behind a paywall for me, but basically, leaks of French classified documents declare the war to be unwinnable for Ukraine. Even with brutal conscription they're getting less than half the troops they need, while Russia still has 30k volunteers every month. Russia cycles in and out fresh recruits / volunteers with veterans, whereas Ukraine is relying on whole units with only 3 weeks of training (which is what hurt the '23 offensive). Also that Russians have gotten much better at communications jamming, which messes up Ukraine's drones. Also says that the risk of a Russian breakthrough is real. There were more details and it went into specific events to explain what happened and what it means for the future. Not a good outlook.
Quick reminder that French "intelligence" determined there would be a 0% chance Russia would invade ukraine in 2021. Their Intel chief alongside German chief was literally in Ukraine on the eve of the invasion lol "European intel" is funny
