Stupid Shit in Kyiv

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2960471]...I think there's a real chance Trump will surprise the far right with his Ukraine policy.[/QUOTE]I believe you mean to say "isolationists" instead of the far right. Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders are the standard bearers for isolationism in the Republican and Democratic Parties, and most reasonable people wouldn't consider them far right. They both support legalization of marijuana for example.

Anyway if that's what you mean, I agree with you. Marco Rubio, who may become Secretary of State, is a neoconservative. Pete Hegseth, future Secretary of Defense, probably is too.

Some follow ups Questner.

[QUOTE=Questner;2960517]All 4 regions are constitutionally part of RF now. Russia won't negotiate over its territory. We also won't allow any interventionist force into Ukraine. There are also many operational military aspects. There are future industrial economic aspects as new regions form a complete industrial loop in metal production, mining, transportation etc. There are also political and local elites aspects as well.

All Ukraine is within historic Russian territory and is part of common historic and territorial continuum.[/QUOTE]That may have made a lot of sense in 1991. Perhaps the USSR shouldn't have split up into many republics. A lot of people from former Soviet Republics in central Asia have moved to Russia for economic reasons, and they wouldn't necessarily want to do that if they lived in the same country. Perhaps Russia, Ukraine and Belarus should have formed a common government.

But does what you're saying make sense now? You'd think that industrial loops and the like now are more integrated with Russia in Russian occupied territory and vice versa. Is this worth fighting over?



[QUOTE=Questner;2960517]NATO is an anachronism created 3 generations ago which serves today as a means to occupy Europe and to extort 2 cents out of its flesh through military spending.[/QUOTE]Would you agree that Russia, Europe and the USA should be natural friends, instead of enemies? And do you think that will ever happen? What would it take to make it happen? My observations would lead me to believe we're a lot more alike than different, certainly on a people-to-people basis.

[QUOTE=Questner;2960517]The US is the main sponsor and beneficiary of the 2014 coup and current conflict. The US should dismantle the Ukraine project and direct its MIC away.[/QUOTE]I don't believe the USA is a beneficiary. It's the opposite. The country has blown a lot of money on the war. And the conflict hurt the world economy.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2960656]The Taliban wants peace as does Hamas, China, and Russia. The Europeans want to buy American LNG. The Houthis said they are going to stop blowing ships up in the Red Sea. Crypto and the stock market have hit all time highs. And Trump is not even in office yet![/QUOTE]Youtube has me temporarily locked out unless I login using my Google ID and I don't want to give the bastards the satisfaction. So I haven't seen the video. As you know I'm not a Trump fan, because of his character and what happened after the 2020 election. But you're right. I like his foreign policy better than any US president's during our adult lifetimes, and hopefully the world will reap the benefits.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2960573]2. It's amazing how isolationists always repeat the same refrain used by Hitler himself. Every time he would attack yet another country, he would go on about the evil West that forced him, a quiet and innocent piece-lover to bomb another European city to oblivion. You have no evidence to insist that Hitler wouldn't have assumed power if it hadn't for the reparations. Germany lost a war, for Christ's sake. Losing wars is never fun.[/QUOTE]I asked ChatGPT! It's a lot smarter than the both of us put together! Here are its conclusions.

Pro Tiny: Historical voting data shows that the Nazi Party's support surged during times of heightened economic hardship, especially after reparations and economic instability intensified. In 1928, the Nazis had less than 3% of the vote. But by 1932, amid the Great Depression and economic collapse tied to reparations, they had become the largest party in the Reichstag.

Many voters explicitly cited economic grievances and resentment of Versailles as reasons for turning to the Nazis, showing that reparations were directly tied to the Nazi Party's appeal.

Pro Xpartan: While reparations were critical, they were not the only factor. Other elements, such as Hitler's oratory skills, effective Nazi propaganda, fear of communism, and political blunders by Weimar leaders, also contributed. Some historians argue that while reparations set the stage for economic hardship, political instability might have led to extremist rule regardless.

Conclusion: In summary, while reparations alone didn't create Hitler's rise to power, they amplified the economic desperation, nationalist resentment, and political instability that Hitler exploited. It's plausible that without reparations, the extreme conditions fueling Nazi support would have been less severe, potentially preventing Hitler's ascent.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2960656]No, you are the one who is nuts. Look at the 1:44 mark in this video. [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3BEfT64r1U[/URL]

The Taliban wants peace as does Hamas, China, and Russia. The Europeans want to buy American LNG. The Houthis said they are going to stop blowing ships up in the Red Sea. Crypto and the stock market have hit all time highs. And Trump is not even in office yet![/QUOTE]Since you're a man-child with critical thinking skills of a 5-year old, it's pointless to argue with you. In 4 years time, when Trump monumentally fails in all his endeavors, be it immigration, economy, or foreign affairs, you will parrot his new / old bullshit with the same unwavering faith and disregard for reality. That's just you being you.

That said, yes, Trump is not in office yet! Right now he's doing what he loves most--running his mouth, promising the world, picking sycophants, and no one holds him accountable for whatever the hell he's mumbling. Good times that will end very, very soon.

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2960471]You, isolationist. Check the history of that ideology and the fruits thereof. But thanks, I'm very rarely called a conservative in any respect. But I think there's a real chance Trump will surprise the far right with his Ukraine policy.[/QUOTE]I wish I had your optimism. But no, for one reason or another, he's Putin's puppet. He can talk and act tough, but unless they have a totally unexpected falling out, he'll keep doing his bidding. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I don't think I will be.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2960697]I asked ChatGPT! It's a lot smarter than the both of us put together! Here are its conclusions.

Pro Tiny: Historical voting data shows that the Nazi Party's support surged during times of heightened economic hardship, especially after reparations and economic instability intensified. In 1928, the Nazis had less than 3% of the vote. But by 1932, amid the Great Depression and economic collapse tied to reparations, they had become the largest party in the Reichstag.

Many voters explicitly cited economic grievances and resentment of Versailles as reasons for turning to the Nazis, showing that reparations were directly tied to the Nazi Party's appeal.

Pro Xpartan: While reparations were critical, they were not the only factor. Other elements, such as Hitler's oratory skills, effective Nazi propaganda, fear of communism, and political blunders by Weimar leaders, also contributed. Some historians argue that while reparations set the stage for economic hardship, political instability might have led to extremist rule regardless.

Conclusion: In summary, while reparations alone didn't create Hitler's rise to power, they amplified the economic desperation, nationalist resentment, and political instability that Hitler exploited. It's plausible that without reparations, the extreme conditions fueling Nazi support would have been less severe, potentially preventing Hitler's ascent.[/QUOTE]Can't say I disagree. Amplified--yes, potentially--yes, and plausible also yes. All the right words. IMHO, German revanchism, more than any reparations was responsible for Hitler. Not unlike the conditions that have been brewing cultivated by Kremlin for the last 17 years. Imagine if Hitler and Hitlerism were dealt with when the world still had a chance.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2960715]Since you're a man-child with critical thinking skills of a 5-year old, it's pointless to argue with you.[/QUOTE]LOL. You are a child who cannot admit to being wrong about anything. I said the Trump criminal trial was a joke. You said orange (Trump) would be in orange (jail). You thought Harris was doing well and that Ukraine was going to win this war.

For someone is full of himself as you are, I am such the adult!, show me one time you predicted anything right. Quite frankly, you are the five year old pretending to be a genius when all you do is repeat MSNBC talking points.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2960715]In 4 years time, when Trump monumentally fails in all his endeavors, be it immigration, economy, or foreign affairs[/QUOTE]Given your horrific track record, your prediction of failure is music to the ears of all Trump voters.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2960691]Youtube has me temporarily locked out unless I login using my Google ID and I don't want to give the bastards the satisfaction. So I haven't seen the video. As you know I'm not a Trump fan, because of his character and what happened after the 2020 election. But you're right. I like his foreign policy better than any US president's during our adult lifetimes, and hopefully the world will reap the benefits.[/QUOTE]I do too and love all his appointments. I looked up Biden's vaunted IRS in 2023 and saw that they audited about half a million people and collected like $30 billion. I think that is like half of what is sent to Ukraine every year. There is this constant notion of rich people getting away with holding all this money when in fact government spending dwarfs the richest people by a country mile.

I think Trump's biggest mistake was kowtowing to the bureaucrats on Covid. He spent like crazy in 2020 and it was not necessary. Thing is there was this huge cost that few thought would happen with all this government spending, inflation. Last I checked the Trump tax cuts cost $200 billion per year. Because of inflation and higher interest rates interest on the national debt, our interest payments have gone from $500 billion under Trump to $1. 1 trillion under Biden yet all these dumb Democratic douches talk about is the budget deficit and tax cuts. It is bullshit.

I am so sick of these WW2 and Hilter analogies. Wars back then were fought over scarce resources. That is less of an issue today, and we have fucking nukes. For all this talk about Putin taking over Europe, no one has given any reason as to why he would want to. Russia has more land than any country in the world.

If you are telling me Putin is the boogeyman while you are picking my pocket, YOU are the boogeyman.

With the video, what you saw is Hamas wanting peace, the Saudis kicking Hamas out of their country, the Houthis saying they were no longer going to attack ships in the Red Sea, Moscow saying there were willing to negotiate with Ukraine, and China making peaceful commentary, and you know why? Because Biden loved war and spent a lot on it. With Trump there is a helluva lot less money in war. A friend of mine said the real reason the Houthis were attacking ships in the Red Sea is they were hopeful Biden would pay them not to. And all this happened after Trump was elected.

To be honest, my biggest fear was Trump would back down from a fight with the DOJ and fall back into the spending ways of his first term. I am glad that fear was unfounded.

Hopefully, Trump gets us out of NATO, returns how much that has cost the American taxpayer with an additional tax cut, and gets LNG plants going so that Europe can buy gas from us. It would be nice to have a president interested in putting money in our pocket versus robbing us blind to pay for dumb wars like this one.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2960268]BR, Putin is a scum bag. Everyone knows that. Thing is the idiotic Democrats believed that Trump won in 2016 because of Putin. They really did. Because they felt like Trump won because of Putin, their goal was to "weaken Putin" thinking that would allow them to win in 2024.

Thing about the Democratic douches is they keep going back to this mindless Russian propaganda bullshit because they think Trump won because of Russian propaganda.

The funny part about this massive landslide is Trump got about the same number of votes as he did in 2020 about 75 million.

Thing is when you look at how much the Democratic candidate got: it was 63 million for Obama in 2012,66 million for Hiliary in 2016, and Kamala got 70 million in 2024. There is nothing out of the ordinary there right?

The problem is in 2020 Biden got 81.4 million votes which means 11 million voters failed to show up for Kamala or that is the number of votes Democrats created out of thin air. I do not know where you fall on this issue, but I will tell you that I believe that a huge portion of those votes were fake, and I think that a large portion of that cheating was justified by compensating for the way Russia supposedly cheated in 2016.

There is no way Democrats can bring out another bullshit Russiagate story again. Keep in mind that the truckers protesting in Canada in 2021 were supposedly backed by Putin as well.

The Democrats elected someone as their candidate who did not get a single vote in a primary and staged a coup against Biden. Their candidate was so fake that every time she spoke it was memorized or off a teleprompter. She needed 60 minutes to edit her interview and refused to go on Joe Rogan when Rogan refused that their interview be edited.

So with the Democratic douches who believe Russia is evil, that Russia attacked Ukraine versus being provoked is an easy story to swallow but what now? Well, you can see how pathetic and finger pointing the reaction is here now? What you can see is a bunch of people finger pointing at the flaws of others versus acknowledging that they were duped.

As for what happens next, I think Trump has been talking to Putin through intermediate sources for a long time and knows what Russia can live with. The tricky part for me is putting in a clause that some Democrat cannot just undo in 4 years or later.[/QUOTE]To the victors go the spoils.

[URL]https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/musk-putin-secret-conversations-37e1c187[/URL]

May I be the first to suggest we rename Washington and Kyiv after one of the Greatest of men!!

I love all the Russian people espec My Dearest Vladimir.

Long live the Motherland!!

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2960689]Some follow ups Questner.

That may have made a lot of sense in 1991. Perhaps the USSR shouldn't have split up into many republics. A lot of people from former Soviet Republics in central Asia have moved to Russia for economic reasons, and they wouldn't necessarily want to do that if they lived in the same country. Perhaps Russia, Ukraine and Belarus should have formed a common government.

But does what you're saying make sense now? You'd think that industrial loops and the like now are more integrated with Russia in Russian occupied territory and vice versa. Is this worth fighting over?

- Maybe I would opt for another plan of action. Why would we transfer our own land to foreign owners at the whim of a gang of crooks and traitors now when we were fighting for generations to keep it ours?

Would you agree that Russia, Europe and the USA should be natural friends, instead of enemies? And do you think that will ever happen? What would it take to make it happen? My observations would lead me to believe we're a lot more alike than different, certainly on a people-to-people basis.

- Let's start with the return of confiscated diplomatic property in the US, return of frozen funds and lift of sanctions

I don't believe the USA is a beneficiary. It's the opposite. The country has blown a lot of money on the war. And the conflict hurt the world economy.

- You have to see how real politik works: the US has been destroying its main economic and political competitor that is Europe, hurting Russia all with a narrow group of people stealing and profiting from war

[/QUOTE]See following the quotes above.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2960988]

I love all the Russian people espec My Dearest Vladimir.

Long live the Motherland!![/QUOTE]Amores perros.

Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Ezra Pound. They loved too. Deeply.

Now it's your turn.

You're in a good company.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2960935] It would be nice to have a president interested in putting money in our pocket versus robbing us blind to pay for dumb wars like this one.[/QUOTE]Sounds like a similar betrayal of UA like Putler did. Written agreements, like the Budapest Memorandum, only required to keep American and Russian interests. As long as an agreement is beneficial to the USA, it has to be kept by the other party. In worst case, Navy, Army or Air Force will look after it. The USA, of course, has no obligation at all.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2960935]I do too and love all his appointments. I looked up Biden's vaunted IRS in 2023 and saw that they audited about half a million people and collected like $30 billion. I think that is like half of what is sent to Ukraine every year. There is this constant notion of rich people getting away with holding all this money when in fact government spending dwarfs the richest people by a country mile.

I think Trump's biggest mistake was kowtowing to the bureaucrats on Covid. He spent like crazy in 2020 and it was not necessary. Thing is there was this huge cost that few thought would happen with all this government spending, inflation. Last I checked the Trump tax cuts cost $200 billion per year. Because of inflation and higher interest rates interest on the national debt, our interest payments have gone from $500 billion under Trump to $1. 1 trillion under Biden yet all these dumb Democratic douches talk about is the budget deficit and tax cuts. It is bullshit.

I am so sick of these WW2 and Hilter analogies. Wars back then were fought over scarce resources. That is less of an issue today, and we have fucking nukes. For all this talk about Putin taking over Europe, no one has given any reason as to why he would want to. Russia has more land than any country in the world.

If you are telling me Putin is the boogeyman while you are picking my pocket, YOU are the boogeyman.

With the video, what you saw is Hamas wanting peace, the Saudis kicking Hamas out of their country, the Houthis saying they were no longer going to attack ships in the Red Sea, Moscow saying there were willing to negotiate with Ukraine, and China making peaceful commentary, and you know why? Because Biden loved war and spent a lot on it. With Trump there is a helluva lot less money in war. A friend of mine said the real reason the Houthis were attacking ships in the Red Sea is they were hopeful Biden would pay them not to. And all this happened after Trump was elected.

To be honest, my biggest fear was Trump would back down from a fight with the DOJ and fall back into the spending ways of his first term. I am glad that fear was unfounded.

Hopefully, Trump gets us out of NATO, returns how much that has cost the American taxpayer with an additional tax cut, and gets LNG plants going so that Europe can buy gas from us. It would be nice to have a president interested in putting money in our pocket versus robbing us blind to pay for dumb wars like this one.[/QUOTE]Despite the criticism from the press, I like the Gabbard appointment. She's not a neoconservative, and unlike many in the Biden and Trump administrations, she doesn't want war with China. I'd love to see Musk take an axe to some of our foolish expenditures on defense, like senseless foreign involvements, although that may be too much to hope for. And agree with you. Trump's biggest failing was spending too much money, especially as we were getting to the tail end of 2020. Note that Pelosi and House Democrats played just as big a role in that as he did though.

Agreed about the LNG. Why would you want to shut down permitting like Biden did? LNG overall probably reduces carbon emissions, by substituting for coal.

[QUOTE=Questner;2961001]See following the quotes above.[/QUOTE]Thanks Questner. I agree about the confiscated property, frozen funds and sanctions. It seems like the USA would have learned from Cuba and Iran that those types of measures backfire. But instead America keeps them in effect forever. As to USA realpolitik of the the type you describe, I believe the beneficiaries are the USA military and defense establishment, not American individuals or businesses.

[QUOTE=ReinerOtto;2961039]Sounds like a similar betrayal of UA like Putler did.[/QUOTE]Sorry, but I do not agree with the notion that a bunch of Democrats who provoked Russia and helped start a war that has hurt Ukraine, Russia, and the USA then later drafted statements and agreements means we have to follow them. Ukraine needed to assess the notion that a change of power in the USA would result in this agreement being terminated.

Whatever promises Ukraine was given, the American pols who did so had no justification in putting the interest of Ukrainian citizens over American citizens. I don't give a rat ass about Ukraine taking the word of Democratic law makers. Ukraine was stupid to have listened to those Dems. The 2024 election was a sharp rebuke of not just the Democratic presidential candidates but the Congressional ones.

Americans are sick to death of these costly endless wars.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2961197]Despite the criticism from the press, I like the Gabbard appointment. She's not a neoconservative, and unlike many in the Biden and Trump administrations, she doesn't want war with China. [/QUOTE]I agree, and I like Pete Hegseth as well. They both have served in the military. What I see from them and what I have seen from every person I know has served in the military in the last ten years is this. The soldiers like the military for the skills they gained, the discipline they learned, have intense love for their fellow soldiers but not one feels like they were serving and protecting our country which is why they signed up.

One soldier summed it up perfectly. He said our supposed enemies were not the nations that were the greatest threat to American citizens, but they were the greatest threat to the USA dollar. Can you imagine that? Risking your life to go to war with a country that is dreaming up an alternative to the dollar? That is not what the military is for. If these fucking pols want a strong dollar, they should embrace sound economic policies not the effing military.