Ukraine

Hmm no.

Donald Trump, paired with the current extremist republican party, are the single greatest threat to American Democracy.

 

Truth!

 

You view everything as a sport. There must be winners and there must be losers. Never be a loser, even if you have to lie to yourself.

Life isn't like that. Winners lose and losers win. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Life is full of compromise.

• I was too young to really know what it was like living under Ronald Reagan. I really can't comment.
  
• It was 15 years since we deployed the US military at scale. Bush Sr did a good job of taking care of a bad situation w/out engulfing the US in some long term occupation. Kudos to him
• Clinton did a good job of holding the economy together to the best of his ability. The Lewinski stuff was nonsense and it was an embarrassment to impeach the president over something so petty.
• Bush Jr was handed a **** stick. Instead of keep it clear of everyone, he stank up the entire world with it. Its not really his fault. It was just really bad American policy and America was blood thirsty for revenge.
• Obama shorted his legacy, but regardless, he was one of the few presidents in recent history the world largely respected as a whole. I appreciate him for starting the process of bringing down health insurance cartel. We still have a long ways to go. He was a major contributor to the green energy initiative.
• Trump started putting pressure on China. He helped with the prison reform. He largely quelled the N Korea issue albeit with much drama. Space Force, regardless of how much you want to mock the idea, was pivotal. He also paved the way for the exit of Afganistan.
• Its still early for Biden and there isn't much to be said, good or bad. He got a very bad rap for the Afghanistan exit, which was largely unfair. He too was handed a **** stick. Protests and riots so far have been very minimal. Sadly being "not Trump" is one of his prime badges.

Generally I recommend therapy for people this invested in politics. The vast majority of the population is actually pretty reasonable. Not everyone is out to get you or over throw your belief structure.

 

I think the in 20 plus years on this board I've ever agreed with more than one point on any post you've made, but I pretty much agree with almost all of this.

 

Your takes on each period in political history read like an objective view of each president. However we all know that’s not objectivity given on the routine thoughts on current topics. I mean you just did it prior on the “Repubs are brazen and that’s a virtue while Libs are self righteous” bit.

Then earlier you ranted about how it’s the fault of the left that Trump is relevant… ignoring the fact that the guy is polled at by Republican voters as the shoe in nominee, and possible speaker of the damn house.

You are a proxy here for the guy everyone knows so don’t take it personally cause there are thousands if not millions like you in America, but my only point is you have more responsibility that than you think for politics here right now and your stance of equality but let’s rant about Dems and say nothing about the right is a major contributing factor to the normalization of Trump and demonization of the left.

And yes it is about winning and losing. Right now getting Trump back in office 100% means democracy loses.

 

That's the scary truth. If you believe in Democracy, Trump should never be your choice. He believes in power by any means.

 

Exactly and what ghost doesn’t comprehend is it has nothing to do with party. As unlikely as it is, a liberal president in the future could conspire to overthrow the government and maybe be much more effective at suppressing things like free speech, controlling the media etc.

It has nothing to do with wins and losses for “party.” It has everything to do with calling out a distinct difference in eye rolling politicians vs tyrannical autocrats. Like… day and night… and SpaceGhost should be smart enough to make that distinction even if he wants to go on a rant about Dems at the same time.

 

he is the leading candidate for the republican nomination and its not even close.

he should be a thing of the past, especially after january 6th. but he wont go away, he continues to spread dangerous and divisive disinfo and an entire political party still follows him. he owns the republican party. the vast majority of republicans still believe the lie that the 2020 election was stolen...all because trump tells them so.

look at all the republican politicians. most of them hate him, but they kiss his ass b/c they know that if they do the right thing and call him out for the piece of garbage he is that his cult members will turn against them...their safety might even be compromised (remember lindsey graham at the airport after january 6th getting harassed by trump supporters).

trump is most definitely NOT at thing of the past.

 

He did start to put pressure on them, until they offered his kids a lot of perks and he basically used his leverage to benefit his daughter and himself versus the country.

 

To prevent Putin's war of aggression or to end it?

There were plenty of diplomacies to prevent the invasion, but Putin "rejected diplomacy and chose war" anyway. It was clear afterward that he was going to invade no matter what.

Ending the invasion is between Putin and Ukraine.

Terrible point either way.

 

A common feature of Authoritarianism and Fascism.

Putin misled by 'yes men' in military afraid to tell him the truth, White House and EU officials say

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin...ell-him-truth-ukraine-us-official-2022-03-30/

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin was misled by advisers who were too scared to tell him how poorly the war in Ukraine is going and how damaging Western sanctions have been, White House and European officials said on Wednesday.
...

 

No wonder I couldn't see who you were responding to. I put him on ignore because I just got tired of reading his BS.

 

Sounds familiar alright. There is a reason the GOP didn't stand up and speak the truth about what really went down in Trump's reign. They knew, and they sat back and watched it happen. They sold their souls to the Devil in a suit, and he loved every minute of it.

 

Insightful thread about Abramovich.

 

I spoke with my German buddy yesterday who is a physicist and owns a company that makes laser experiment equipment.

He’s based in Houston but has a lot of business in Europe. He said a lot of Europe is sort of frozen right now waiting for Putin’s other shoe to drop. It’s hurting his business because no one knows if Putin will attack other countries or start dropping nukes. The overall sentiment seems to be that he’s a wildcard.

 

It is hard to believe anyone can have followed this and really be that ignorant.

The Russians and before them the Soviets have been vividly clear on their insistence on the maintenance of a "buffer" of states between them and NATO, and that they will not tolerate NATO - which was formed to be and supposedly still is a DEFENSIVE alliance - to expand its footprint to the borders of Russia - especially in Ukraine, which is the most strategically critical state for the Russians for variety of reasons. The USSR/Russia has been consistently and bluntly clear about this, without deviation, across multiple national leaders, going back to WWII.

The NATO powers, including the United States, have on numerous occasions during this interval made specific pledges to honor that requirement, with the understanding that if they did not, then war would very likely be the outcome. These pledges were consistently reaffirmed and maintained by us and by NATO, until 2008 when Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice, in an epic act of hubris, stated:

I want to underscore that NATO has an open-door policy to all European democracies that qualify for its membership. This is not a matter of forcing countries into one alliance or another. It is simply a matter of giving them the choice that free peoples deserve. And NATO stays true to that principle and stays true to the Bucharest Declaration that declared that NATO – that Georgia and Ukraine, having declared that they wish to pursue a transatlantic future, will become members of NATO.
​

This was, to the Russians, a substantial change that contradicted the previous promises that we had made to the Russians over a period since WWII. It was received by them as a major provocation, which was later exacerbated by the Obama regime's interference in Ukraine, facilitating unrest and promoting regime change there, in what had been a democratically elected government, which resulted in the removal of a pro-Russian president of Ukraine, followed almost immediately by the Russians moving in to take control of Crimea, which was later confirmed by a referendum in the Crimea.

Not only have the Russians been clear on the boundaries and expectations here, but after the national humiliation caused by the blundering Obama with regards to the provocation of the Russians to seize the Crimea, we have no excuse for not understanding that the Russians will fight for this territory if we try to encroach on it - especially if we try to extend NATO membership or install offensive weapons in Ukraine. If we want to refute those boundaries, we can do that by going to war with Russia face to face, in what will likely end up as WWIII.

This is not a drill. This is not an academic military simulation exercise. And all of the bellicose gesturing by the white house, the rather incongruous patchwork of economic sanctions, and the screeching and shrieking by the corporate media are not going to change the course of any of this.

In fact, it is in Russia's interest to wrap this up and end this invasion as quickly as possible. They want it to end and are assuredly working to bring it to an end as quickly as they can. It is the actions of the North Atlantic leaders that are having the effect of extending this and dragging it out, to the great harm of not only the Ukrainian people, but also people around the world. We are very likely on the verge of food shortages because of all of this, which will result in significant famine and death in poorer countries here over the next year or two. The sanctions and the other efforts to block Russian and Ukrainian finance and commerce are directly responsible for that.

What is wanted here is a move towards peace. The US has done precisely nothing to promote peace here. In fact, just the opposite. Actions by the US have served, and are serving to escalate this conflict and to drag it out, to keep it going. That is the exact WRONG way to go here.

The Russians are not going to withdraw and they are not going to concede their core requirements, which are

1) Ukrainian neutrality,
2) a revived pledge that there will be no NATO membership for Ukraine,
3) no western missiles of offensive armaments in Ukraine,
4) uninhibited ability to transport its natural gas and other trade across Ukraine,
5) protection of the basic rights of Russian citizens of Ukraine, located primarily in East Ukraine​

On the last two, it is easy to see how the Russians would be attracted to option of annexing the territories in the East that contain huge Russian majorities, providing them with a land connection between Russia and Crimea, which is also their only warm water port, but that may still be an open item.

The Russians are not going to walk away without the effective achievement of 1-5. You, and the press, and the white house can run your mouths about this all you like, but to the Russians, this is an existential threat of an issue, regardless of whether you understand that, or agree, or not. So the way to end this - short of us going to war with the Russians - is for the Russians to achieve these ends as quickly as possible, and then pull out of the country.

We are not going to stop them from doing this, but we can make it take longer and cost more suffering, death, destruction and harm to the people of Ukraine and the world. We need to be practical here, even though we may not like the outcome, and work to achieve peace here, as that is the best outcome for all concerned.

 

Those tied for second place aren't much better. They stood by him for 4 long years and watched his plotting to overturn the vote for months, while echoing his lies. They never called him out on his Covid hoax propaganda either.

The party needs a new face, someone who wasn't part of Trump's reign, and someone who called out his lies and deceit from a distance during his tenure. I'm not sure that person exists, but it would be the only one I would even remotely trust.