Coffeesforclosers

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.

Great movie. Grossly underrated. Also a great portrayal of how grown ups with different views get along.

If we took nuclear power seriously, we wouldn't be in this mess, but thats just me bitching. I cant speak for other people. But so far we've spent $7.3 billion to help Ukraine. That cash, which is about 1/2 of the sticker price of the USS Gerald R. Ford, has helped kill 30,000 Russian soldiers, destroy or capture 1300 tanks and APCs, sink a guided missile cruiser, and shoot down hundreds of jets and helicopters. Its the best RoI on defense spending we've had in decades. And all to help beat up a country that said two days ago they want to invade Alaska. Aka somebody who's got it coming. Without the loss of 1 single American soldier, ship, tank or plane. If Joe Biden can't sell that, he deserves to be tossed out.

Russia's economy is a split picture. On the one hand, theyre a huge raw material exporter, and we're in the middle of a huge commodity/energy boom. On the other hand, their manufacturing sector, specifically for motor vehicles, appliances and infrastructure is collapsing. While the Duma is passing laws forcing companies to service military vehicles for free, and forcing workers to work extra hours with no pay. Plus inflation. Plus the dramatic decrease in electronics, namely chips and processors they have access to. You'd rather not be Russia right now, all things considered. Its not like we need anything they provide either.

They are smart, though. They aren't trying to create a pragmatic solution to a complex national issue. They're trying to give their primary voters what they want, so they don't get primaried. Giving the voters what they want and solving problems aren't the same thing. Give *your* voters what they want though, and you only have to win one election to stay in power, not two.

I'm gonna bet that 99% of this board are Americans that graduated High School. So we've all taken a basic government class...but here we are.

Yeah. I'd have more faith in the legislative branch, if it wasn't utterly dysfunctional. Or if the GOP hadn't immediately followed the Roe ruling with calls for a blanket national ban. We need three working branches of government. They'll write common sense laws. Its just that their standard for common sense is determined by who votes in their primary. Not who votes in the election. Like I said, there are two ways the GOP can ***** up the roll their on. First is a civil war between Trump and DeSantis (and now maybe Liz Cheney?). The other is overreaching on their Roe win to unify and mobilize democrats.

If money is all I have to pay to not have Trump in office, I'm ok with it. Until quite recently, China provided its people with an economy that was humming along with low inflation, low prices and a million chances to get rich. You dont need a Bill of Rights to get a 13% return on your 401k. Besides, boom & bust cycles are the nature of capitalism since forever. Making Trump president for life wouldn't stop them. If a booming economy and growing wealth are the only thing thats really important to a society, you don't want liberty, you want a fair master.

Honestly, is there anybody posting in this thread that thinks Russia deserves to win? And if there isn't, what the ***** are we arguing about? Hell, "What the ***** are we arguing about?" might be the single most important question in modern America. Right after "Why the ***** are we even arguing?"

You don't send Peacekeepers to deter aggression. The Screaming Eagles though, they tend to get their point across. The point of NATO is to deter Russian aggression against NATO members. Poland asked for and is getting a permanent US base. Which makes sense because Poland is a NATO member, Russia invades its neighbors for no reason, and because Eastern Europe has a long, long history of being sold down the river by Western Europe whenever the words "War" and "Russia" pop up. People forget that 1/3 of Poland's population died or was murdered in World War II. Poland is afraid Russia will attack, because Russia has said over, and over, and over again that they want to rebuild the USSR/Russian Empire, whether their old territories want to come back into the fold or not. They've also said over, and over, and over again the reason they want their Empire back is to break up the global order we created after WWII. I like it when my country has more power and influence, rather than less, so I think Russian success is a bad thing. I don't put it past Russia to pick a fight with NATO, because Russia has been saying so repeatedly for months. Since Russia only respects power, we've got to meet threat of force with threat of force. Biden's been really good about actually standing up to Putin and making him put his cards on the table. He's still a one-term president. Your last point though...I couldn't agree more. Any real statesman would have seen through Russia's BS and called their bluff years ago. Instead we had three administrations get their lunch money taken by Putin's bluffing because...well who the ***** knows.

Hey, his statement makes perfect sense...if you ignore everything Russia said when they thought they would win in four days.

No its not in a strictly legal sense. But since abortion is now murder in a lot of states, and men don't get pregnant, how do you enforce the law?

They should go back to cat fishing horny Russian soldiers, then geo-locating their tinder profiles for artillery strikes.