Coffeesforclosers

I hope so, but I wouldn't bet on it. There's a lot more to North Korea's state ideology and the Kims' personality cult than just communism. North Korean defectors are strange because they frequently miss it there, and return voluntarily. In a nutshell, it's because they're raised to believe tha North Koreans are the gentlest, most generous, most innocent and most moral people on the planet. So they have to obey the Kims without question and live in an armed camp, or they'll all be conquered and murdered. Check this talk out. Its a long talk. The Cleanest Race by BR Myers

Fox news is the most popular media outlet in the country, and its not even close. Has been for years if not decades. So what does it matter if "The Media" skews left, but the overwhelming majority of media consumers chose to consume media that skews right? How can they be victims of this vast liberal media complex if they dont watch it, ever?

My point exactly.

Oh come on. Your posts in this subforum are 95% embeds from the Q twittersphere. You spam out tweets from Jack Posobiec, as if he didn't have his security clearance yanked by the Air Force for cause. Give me a break.

DR sees the world entirely in Red vs. Blue glasses. His "side" happens to be Red. You can compare and contrast him to say, Sherpa, who supports Ukraine and wants them to win, but sees clear practical limits to the amount of support we can provide. The limits are based on our military readiness, possible enemies (read, China), and obligations around the globe.

It wouldn't. NATO's mutual defense clause only applies to an attack on a member in North America or Europe. NATO has no obligation to back us up if China attacked Guam or Hawaii. It's also the reason why the UK had to take on Argentina by itself over the Falklands. However, if for whatever reason those North Koreans attacked say Poland or the Baltics, yeah, then the balloon goes up.

I agree. So how do we help Ukraine win the war?

Its better they weren't sent. They'd really take a beating.

Its got to be an equipment thing. We're not at war, and we train pilots for our allies all the time. The Ukrainians dont have to qualify top gun, the just have to be better than the Russians flying against Ukraine.

If the choice is between gradually losing their airforce, or learning to fly planes their benefactors can actually replace...then its a pretty easy choice.

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. But this is the same China who we practically begged to help stop Russia's invasion of Ukraine and avert this war. Which would have been the ideal solution for everyone. And its the same China that pretty much laughed in our face, told the Russians we were on to them, and cheered Russia on from the sidelines. When China thought Russia was going to conquer the country in four days, of course.

He doesn't need to. The quoted article is an op-ed, not a news story. The big red "Opinion" caption gives it away.

So China would threaten to kill someone they think is harmless to them? That's your argument? As Irv would say, what a mess.

Thad provides the sort of sports coverage thats great for killing time during the weekend or on a break. I'm sure he's got a ton of insider knowledge, he just cant share it with us or he'll lose his access. Cover 1 is great for explaining how the game of football works from the Bills PoV. Some of the guys in their podcast network are lame, but that's what the next button is for.

China was supposedly coordinating with Russian last winter. Russia was going to take Ukraine in February- March, then China was going to take Taiwan in June-July. It was going to be their big coming out party as New World Order. Woops. But right now, China can't assume that they'll bowl over the Taiwanese in a week. Instead they have to prepare for months of war, tens of thousands of casualties, and an insurgency. At a time when the legitimacy of the CCP is in doubt and their country is wracked with scandal and crisis. I'm going to assume they've read Sun Tzu and determined this is a horrible, horrible time to fight. Their country is divided, their enemy, Taiwan is united and prepared, and China doesn't know how good their military actually is. I dont know if China thinks they can take Taiwan right now. But its a one party state ruled by a dictator, so they may try anyway?

Of course she should go. Xi is neck deep in a ***** pile of his own making. Whats he gonna do?

Translating from Belichickese.

Creamsicle Orange done right.

Depending on who you ask, the volume of Russian shelling has dropped between 50-66%. Simply put, Russia still has a massive, working infrastructure for manufacturing artillery ammunition. They've also got however many millions of shells 50 years of Soviet paranoia squirrelled away. Artillery ammunition quantity was never and will never be a problem for them. Given the ass kicking they took from February-April, Russian generals sat back and reevaluated their strengths and weaknesses. The result was what we saw in May and June, no more blitzkrieg style attacks or fluid front lines. Just find the Ukrainians, attack them with some cannon fodder to hold them in place, and blast them until they die or retreat. The Russians did this very well, Telegram is full of videos of Ukrainian trenches and bunkers reduced to craters and choked with human remains. This is how they ultimately retook Luhansk. It's how they planned to retake Donetsk, and its how they slowed Ukraine's Kherson counter-attack to a crawl. Then HIMARS showed up. The Russians didn't really care at first, because they'd been told all of their air defense systems could shoot down HIMARS missiles. Except Putin's Military-Industrial Complex lied and nothing can shoot down HIMARs missiles. The Ukrainians evaluated Russian methods, and started blowing up every ammunition depot and command post they could find with HIMARS. Blowing up the ammo dumps was clutch. Russia had basically placed all its ammo dumps out in the open, in the best place to provide endless shells for its artillery. Because they thought these dumps were safe. So pre-HIMARs, Russian artillery could shoot as much as it wanted, whenever it wanted to. Russian artillery needs to be able to shoot all day, every day too, because generally the quality of Russian infantry and tank units is absolutely horrible. But the quality of your soldiers doesnt matter nearly as much if youre just going vaporize everything in fron of them. So long as you have the ability to vaporize everything in front of them... So now Russia has to figure out how to shoot down HIMARS. Until they do, they have to move all their ammo dumps out of HIMARS range, or watch them explode. Which chokes off the supply of ammunition to their cannon, which means they can't just rinse Ukrainian units in artillery shells until they die. Which means they have to figure out a new strategy for how they plan to attack and defend anywhere on their front. And for the time being, Ukraine has the ability to blow up pretty much whatever it wants within HIMARs range. However, they dont have that many HIMARs, and they took an awful beating trying to hold Luhansk. So we're in a new phase of the war where hopefully Ukraine can cash in on their advantage and make some real gains.

But this conflict started back in 2014. When the State department's neocon extraordinaire Victoria Nuland and the CIA engineered the coup in 2014. In 2016 Trump's in, she's out and a balance of power back-and-forth is in place. In 2020 Biden's in and she's back in the club. Under-secretary for Blinken assigned to finish the job. To fast-forward to today, in my view this war is already lost But Washington refuses to allow Zelensky to sit down and discuss peace terms. Europe is a disaster, It should be pointed out these are the same cast of characters that FUBAR'd every single one of these regime change operations over the past 25+ years and its almost a guarantee this one is also going to end in abject failure. If the US had clearly stated there are no plans to put missiles in Ukraine or to advance the NATO alliance towards their border none of this would have happened. But the US didn't say that because that's absolutely the objective. What you might be distracted from here is the big picture of changing alliances and transfer of power among the global players. Do you really believe the US is playing from a position of strength? Look at Biden's recent trip for clues. The body language and how he came off as weak and begging for the Saudi's to increase oil output. And he came away with nothing. They did everything short of just laughing in his face. This week Putin follows up with his visit. Don't be surprised if Putin along with Xi eventually broker an armistice or peace deal between long time adversaries Iran and Saudi Arabia. That will be a real kick in the toolbox for the US State Department. The balance of power is shifting away from the US and these weak and ineffective leaders and constant threats of violence and military intervention and sanctions are accelerating the process as the world is looking for the exit ramp. Apologies for the janky formatting.

Thank ***** god for a nuanced opinion rather than a raft of tweets! Ill reply to you at length later, and I asked for your take because I know you have a personal connection to what's going on.

Russia chose to start a war of conquest. Why should anybody compromise with them, when all a compromise does is incentivize another war? Do you think Russia's invasion and its subsequent conduct are justified in some way? I'm interested in hearing your reasoning if you do.

Who are you virtue signaling for dude?

I dont know who this Ray Epps guy is. This is some sort of twitter conspiracy thing right? Twitter's a sewer and I almost laughed when Musk welched on buying it out. I guess the fact that something like 1/3 of all users are some kind of bot spouting some kind of propaganda had something to do with it. And it just seems odd that whenever Trump is in danger, Critical Race Theory suddenly drops off the radar. Unless of course you're Ron DeSantis, and you want to keeping pumping up Trumpist voters without lifting a finger to defend Trump.

DeSantis is more popular than Trump. He became more popular by being a smarter, more palatable Trump. He didn't bother asking for Trump's endorsement. If he and Mitch McConnell decide to play ball with the Democrats, Trump is toast. If for no other reason than it gives GOP elites a way to put Trump out to pasture without losing Trump's voters. Which is the ideal outcome for them.