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१३ ऑगस्ट, २०२५
Sunrise — 6:12 — and early afternoon — 1:00.
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पोस्ट्स
८८ टिप्पण्या:
Flowers are yellow to attract pollinators. As a biology teacher told me.
I'm reading Peter H. Wilson's book "The Thirty Years War" and came across something that reminded me of the hunting discussion a few days ago.
One of the prominent players was Elector Johann Georg of Saxony, known as Bierjoerg (Beer George). A lazy bon-vivant, he reigned for 45 years and is reported to have killed 113,629 animals on his hunts from 1611 to 1653. Unfortunately there is no breakdown by species.
Queried Grok on book recommendations on a theological topic. Two of the titles (including publisher and year published) did not exist. When I brought it to Grok's attention, got an "Oops, my bad" response.
I saw this today- and yesterday, and last week, and probably for the last few years on X: BREAKING: Several gay dating apps are reportedly threatening that, if the Supreme Court bans gay marriage, they'll reveal all the closeted Republican officials and members of Congress who have accounts on their platforms.
Bring it on! If you've got the evidence, bring it on!
Of course, all the sites will lose all or most of their revenue immediately because no one else will trust them, but hey, that's a small price for me to pay. Bring it on!
I have been reading about Adam Schiff and I have questions.
Can the administration revoke the security clearance of a member of congress, if not, what does it take?
Why does Adam Schiff still have a security clearance?
Schiff is on these Senate Committees: Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
He has clearances for each of these, to varying degrees. Revoking clearances is something that is subject to procedural rules, and these usually get invoked with some kind of finding with evidence. Don't think that's happened yet, we are in the early stages of the outrage cycle.
Duty of Inquiry said...
I have been reading about Adam Schiff and I have questions.
Can the administration revoke the security clearance of a member of congress, if not, what does it take?
POTUS is the ultimate security clearance issuer. He can, at will, deny or revoke a security clearance for anyone. The House and Senate have rules that they use in determining who they will allow access to, but if POTUS strips a member of their security clearance- it's gone.
There's a commercial on TV ("Nature's Bounty") that says a person's hair grows 570 miles during their lifetime. They must mean metric miles.
Government schools....
The DC chief of police knows her business, by gum!
“Trump to offer Putin minerals for peace
Donald Trump is preparing to offer Vladimir Putin access to rare earth minerals to incentivise him to end the war in Ukraine.
The US president will arrive at the much-anticipated meeting with his Russian counterpart on Friday armed with a number of money-making opportunities for Putin.
They will include opening up Alaska’s natural resources to Moscow and lifting some of the American sanctions on Russia’s aviation industry, The Telegraph can reveal.”
The Telegraph
If true, is this ok with you Trumpies?
Trump threatens 'very severe' consequences if Russia doesn't agree to end Ukraine war ~ FOX News
'Trump refuses to elaborate on punishment if Russia doesn't end Ukraine war'
Severe consequences in, what, twelve days? 50 days? Trump's history renders the comment ludicrous.
Keep the pressure on Russia. Economic weapons and military support for Ukraine. Russia will eventually fold and go home.
Reinforcing what Gospace wrote, there are plenty of gay Republicans who are out of the closet. The Log Cabin Republicans are, and always have been, an important component of the GOP coalition.
I'm in late stage outrage when it comes to Adam Schitt.
"'Trump refuses to elaborate on punishment if Russia doesn't end Ukraine war"
Clearly, "opening up Alaska’s natural resources to Moscow" will be right off.
And that's just for starters!
The Supreme Court is not going to ban gay marriage.
No, they won't ban transgender marriage, but under Democratic law, they will be forced to support other queer sexual orientations, including: pedophilia, polygamy, etc., under the Pro-Choice religion. #NoJudgment #NoLabels #LoveWins
All's fair in lust and abortion.
Newly declassified Top Secret emails sent on December 22, 2016 complying with President Obama's order to create the manufactured January 2017 ICA about Russia expose how DNI James Clapper demanded the IC fall in line behind the Russia Hoax. Clapper admits that it was a "team sport" that required "compromise on our 'normal modalities'".
Read for yourself (below at link)
In her new album, Taylor Swift is supposed to "throw shade" on Blake Lively and Donald Trump. Lively's an ex-friend of Tay Tay's. And Trump? An ex-boyfriend or something?
-
Yes. AI gets a lot of things wrong. There will be jobs fact checking it for at least a decade, maybe a generation.
Obamacity will forever remain a "burden" of history.
Taylor Swift gives me a headache.
The lying liar left insist their poorly run, pro-crime, shit-show cities are crime-free.
Political congruence ("=') is a bigots' apology.
Gospace said...
I saw this today- and yesterday, and last week, and probably for the last few years on X: BREAKING: Several gay dating apps are reportedly threatening that, if the Supreme Court bans gay marriage, they'll reveal all the closeted Republican officials and members of Congress who have accounts on their platforms.
Bring it on! If you've got the evidence, bring it on!
Of course, all the sites will lose all or most of their revenue immediately because no one else will trust them, but hey, that's a small price for me to pay. Bring it on!
************
Idiocy. per AI: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled definitively on this issue in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). The Court held that the Constitution requires all states to allow same-sex marriages and to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
This 5-4 decision established that:
The fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment
States cannot ban same-sex marriageStates must recognize same-sex marriages performed legally in other states."
The bigger question is: what sort of an intellectual OAF doesn't check to see if his premise is true or not?
"DNI James Clapper demanded the IC fall in line behind the Russia Hoax. Clapper admits that it was a "team sport" that required "compromise on our 'normal modalities'"."
Holy crap. In writing?
"DNI James Clapper demanded the IC fall in line behind the Russia Hoax. Clapper admits that it was a "team sport" that required "compromise on our 'normal modalities'"."
Holy crap. In writing?
O-Mike,
Clapper says:
"This is one project that has to be a team sport"
YouTube restricts video of Dems, critics saying 2016 election was hacked — then backtracks
Hacked and Stolen election! the receipts.
(not easy to find on youtube.)
"YES - THEY DID SAY RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION."
We have the receipts.
"This is one project that has to be a team sport"
I'm sure Inga will be along to explain it to us.
good watch here.
McCabe denies the FBI ever said the Russians hacked the election! Comer - admits he is lawyering up. LOL
Inga - did the Russians hack the 2016 election?
yes or no.
O-Mike - read the screen shot at the link. make it bigger if you need to. The push back from the other intelligence arms is interesting.
At Literary Hub:
"On “Mocha Dick,” the White Whale of the Pacific that Influenced Herman Melville"
"In 1839 Jeremiah N. Reynolds, an American newspaper editor, lecturer, explorer, and writer, published a curious tale of a famously fierce bull whale. The article, published in The Knickerbocker; or, New-York Monthly Magazine, claimed this cetacean had foiled the murderous attacks of many whalers over the years and was notable not only for his size and pugnacity but also for his coloration: “He was white as wool!”"
Read the whole thing
"O-Mike - read the screen shot at the link."
I did. Rogers' never bought it.
The thing about Democrats and Leftists (one and the same No?) and "Moderate Republicans" is they just spout the party line. No independence of thought. The Democrat elite hates Russia, so they do too. The Globalists love Zelensky, so they do too.
Never do they think "What is good for the average American?" Because they don't think of themselves as Americans. They're just part of the X community that lives in America. So when the Ukraine war comes along, they just spout Ukrainian propaganda and wonder how they can use it to attack Trump.
If tommorrow the NYT's and Chuck Schumer thought Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a good thing, they'd all flip on a dime and agree. That's why engaging them in any discussion of USA foreign Policy is useless and boring.
I struck by listening to the PBS newshour how the reporter viewed the whole Summit through the eyes of the Euros and Zelensky. Never did the reporter talk about the USA and its Interests. It was all about "Will Ukraine be protected?" "Will Trump stand up for Ukraine?" "Will Trump work with the Euros to stop Putin?"
And of course, we get complete radio silence on gaza and the atrocities going on while crying big fat crocidile tears over "Poor Ukraine".
Democrat Mayors Report Violent Crime Down 40% Since They Redefined ‘Violent’ And ‘Crime.’ — the Babylon Bee is having fun with the Democrats.
Big Mike said...
Democrat Mayors Report Violent Crime Down 40% Since They Redefined ‘Violent’ And ‘Crime.’ — the Babylon Bee is having fun with the Democrats.
Not so. Babylon Bee just out and out lied about what DC Mayor Bowser said. The Bee was making fun of MAGAts.
gadfly’s brain is several times denser than lead.
What sort of man is Jim Clapper? Back in the 1990’s the Defense Department merged several disparate imagery collection and imagery analysis agencies with the Defense Mapping Agency to form the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, or NIMA. Clapper was placed charge of it.
The problem, as Clapper saw it, was that NIMA has four letters, while the top agencies — CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI — were “three letter agencies,” having only three letters in their acronyms. He obsessed over turning NIMA into a three letter agency by the expedient of a hyphen. He turned NIMA into the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA.
True story
RCOCEAN - you are my enemy. You are the enemy of everyone on earth in fact, who is not part of the Putinist-Xi clique. If there is anyone who can be called an enemy of all humanity, you are it.
I regret helping develop the automated controls for large parts of the US natural gas transmission system. I regret paying for doing so with my health. I was deceived into thinking I was doing a good thing, to enable US exports (LNG), and export substitution. I was wrong, in that my efforts served mainly to support the prosperity of creatures like you. If I could throw all that in your face I would. I wish you a painful, early death.
When you are in Carson City I cannot recommend Carson Donut highly enough. Old school place hidden amongst Les Schwab, the self-serve car wash and other auto related commercial enterprise. Do try the maple bars…
PBS? They told me they’d be cooked without the graft…
"You are the enemy of everyone on earth in fact, who is not part of the Putinist-Xi clique."
Jeezum buwaya, you gotta take it easy on the propaganda. Putin's enemies are pretty much confined to the ruling class of the West, who believe that the US cannot tolerate the existence of any near peer, or, even help us, peer powers on the face of the planet.
The Russia Federation sits on one sixth of the planet's land surface. They don't need more land. Blinken told Lavrov in a meeting just prior to the invasion, a meeting where war could have been averted, that the US was going to position nuclear missiles in Ukraine, five minutes from Moscow, and Russia had no say in it.
We just attempted a decapitation strike on Iran two months ago. A strike that we made while pretending to negotiate with them, to put them off their guard, then we tried to kill all of the people we were negotiating with. What is the lesson that the Russians will draw from this?
Russia has an estimated $72 trillion dollars in natural wealth. Russia cannot be ordered around like Bangladesh, where we ordered its leader overthrown, or Pakistan, where we ordered the most popular politician in the country arrested and imprisoned, and he was, BTW, and the charge they used was that he "revealed state secrets" when he publicly stated that the US had ordered his removal. That's Kafka right there.
Putin's crime is to be an effective leader of Russia. We liked Yeltsin a lot better, who allowed Russia to be looted. Yeltsin put Putin in charge after seeing how he had been used by the West to damage Russia.
"Putin's clique" is the majority of the people on the planet, who are tired of the "rules based order." Equals make laws, strong men make "rules" and make other people live by them while ignoring them for themselves.
"That's our story and we're sticking to it." Stated without apparent irony by Clapper.
It's not possible to see the truth if you allow your mind to be poisoned by daily doses of propaganda. The hard way to determine what is true is to look at the evidence over time, and see which narratives hold up, even as the details and circumstances change. There is an easy way, you can do what most humans do and consider that which is easiest to think must be true. This is why repetition is so effective. This is why it was so hard for people to accept Darwin, he was fighting repetition, same with why it was hard for physicists to accept a lot of the stuff that came out in physics in the early 20th century, why it's usually young men who make new discoveries. So if you allow them to repeat their propaganda, they don't even really need to provide you with evidence. You will just assume the evidence exists, it must or they wouldn't say it so much. But really you are just falling for the attribution fallacy, with a healthy dollop of confirmation bias to lubricate the process of abdicating your thinking to them.
Jaq, all their neighbors, little countries, hate and fear the Russians. It isnt the "globohomo" elite that have it in for them. Those shits were delighted with Nordstream II. Approval of that by the execrable Biden was what license Putins great adventure. No, its the common people that share their border that wanted in to NATO.
If you remember that our media is owned by billionaires who profit greatly from the actions of governments, far more than they do by any advertising dollars their programs or newspapers generate, then you can understand why Rachael Maddow gets paid so much, or why they were willing to "lose" tens of millions of dollars producing Colbert's show. The media feels no responsibility to their consumers, who are just chow to them, and if you think that the media are purveyors of the unvarnished truth, you are not as discerning as I thought you were.
Brewers win 12th in a row. Free hamburger at George Webb.
All my life the threats have come from Russia and China, because of their fundamental nature. That hasnt changed, at its core, only their circumstances. The old ideological threat has passed, but they are clever people, they invented new ways to present an ideological threat. I think you are a victim of this.
"Hacked the election" was a motte-and-bailey position.
It was intended to suggest that Russia changed vote totals and, as I picked up from Matt Taibbi, it was critical the IC never confirm nor deny that happened. As the spiked PDB indicated in 2016, it didn't. But whenever any brings up any evidence that is exactly what Democrats (and even some Republicans) believe, the retreat is to "Facebook ads! Wikileaks!" as if they believe an election should be overturned because people decided to vote for one candidate for the "wrong" reasons.
When people tell you it's "Our Democracy" you better believe they think your vote doesn't count.
"Jaq, all their neighbors, little countries, hate and fear the Russians."
Really, like Ukraine, where the US backed two coups, and both times the people voted in pro-Russian governments, and so we put in the Banderites, which provoked the civil war we wanted?
Like Romanian, where the people's choice candidate was pro Russian and we prevented him from running. Like Georgia, where we funded weeks long protests on the street over a law that required participants in Georgia's policies who were foreign nationals, or taking money from foreign nationals to register, like FARA does in the US. We called the law "Russian style" even though we have the same laws in the US. This is what I mean by making rules for others to live by that we don't.
Armenia is run by a western installed satrap, who just sold out his own country for NATO's interests, against the will of his people. I could go on.
The US has admitted to having armed and trained the Taliban to destabilize Afghanistan and force the Soviets to invade 'What's a few exited jihadies" - Spegniev Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.
I don't think that you follow events along Russia's borders as closely as you believe. I think that you believe what you are told.
The anti establishment parties on the Eastern European border, and their media, are anti Russian. Enemy #1 of the EU bureaucracy, Polands Duda, was the one man most responsible for Ukraines survival in 2022. The US media can hang itself for all I care, but over there they have to deal with reality.
Regarding security clearances and Adam Schiff vs. James Clapper, Trump controls the executive branch (Clapper, CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.) while elected members of Congress sit at the top of their branch of government.
The Deep State ghosts and serpents have long manipulated storylines and refused classified access to feeble-minded and/or weak-willed, and/or grandstanding politicians. There have been cases where, following a classified briefing to a congressional committee, a politicians walks out and repeats everything on the Capitol steps. And then there is Hank Johnson and his national security concern of Guam flipping over due to having too many people.
The ghosts and serpents used the info-managment playbook on Trump 45 between 2017 and 2021. They treated him like a small child or puppy, and as Trump was fully naive about DC culture, he mostly didn't catch on (e.g., the Mueller Investigation through the Jan 6 structured smears and establishment backroom dealings). This is why Trump 47 changed...
You are welcome to read Polish and Finnish media all you like. I think you arent listening to anything but Russian influenced propaganda. They get away with it because the US MSM is corrupt and distrusted. They exploit a weakness, like the Soviets used to do, making a fuss about US racial conflicts for instance. It was a crack in the US narrative that they worked with crowbars and dynamite. Well, the Russians forgot nothing, they are using crowbars and dynamite on the current cracks.
"All my life the threats have come from Russia and China, because of their fundamental nature."
Or... and hear me out, or, the US has manufactured those threats in its goal of complete world domination, which we felt was in reach at the close of WWII.
The US ordered Japan not to settle the ownership of those islands that are still in dispute today or we would take Okinawa from them. We wanted the trouble to continue there.
Imperial Japan had taken Taiwan from China and used it as a launchpad for the invasion of China, which was a horrific period of Chinese history. When China tried to get their island back at the close of the war, we fought them, actual combat happened, and we sent warships down the Taiwan Strait to warn them off, because we planned to use this island the same way as Imperial Japan had, in the future, against China.
Once you come to understand that projection is the language of these people, it becomes clear who they are, confession by projection.
"You are welcome to read Polish and Finnish media"
Oh yes, Polish media, that will give you the truth. You mean like when the leader of Poland accused Putin of being behind the 70 or so Ukrainians who are being expelled from the country for waving a neo-nazi flag at a club there? Yes, Putin apparently got a bunch of Ukrainian neonazis to cause trouble in Poland. No, it's because the Ukrainians still worship a man whose forces murdered a lot of Polish people when Hitller and Stalin shook hands and handed over part of Ukraine to the Soviets, and Poland needs its people to forget this, so when it comes up, as it does often, he must blame Putin.
Europe does not have a free press.
BTW, the winners of the last Polish election were against the war, and so were not allowed to form a government, instead the losers formed a coalition and took power. Same thing happened in country after country in Europe, and leaders like Starmer, Macron, Merz, etc, are incredibly unpopular, and if it weren't for the manipulation of the results, Europe would have bowed out of this war quickly, had they listened to their own people.
Sorry, Hitler and Stalin handed over part of Poland to Ukraine, and this still makes up Ukraine's sacred borders!
Yugoslavia's borders weren't all that sacred though, amiright?
Maybe you could simply explain to me how the US intervention in the Chinese civil war to split off Taiwan is any different than Russia's intervention in Ukraine's civil war, and therefor the US intervention is justified, and Russia's is not. That is a simple thing that you could explain to me, and if you can make a good argument, you can undermine my certainty on these other issues.
For those who play Wordle, wasn’t yesterday’s (8/13) word KEFIR the worst word ever? I had to look up what it was. I got it in 5, pretty much by trial and error.
Kefir tastes like ass, though I’ve appreciated it in a Scrabble context…
The Chinese owned Taiwan for about four years, against the will of most Taiwanese - who were in fact pro-Japanese if anything. Then they got a flood of Chinese anticommunist refugees. The US did not "split off" Taiwan. It split itself off, or rather Chiangs clique managed to get the various dominant groups in Taiwan to hold out against the Reds. It wasnt the US that held the straits islands against Red invasions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guningtou
"Europe does not have a free press" - that is insane. Full and complete insanity. You don't read or understand any part of the continental Euro press, paper or video or online.
"Clyde said...
For those who play Wordle, wasn’t yesterday’s (8/13) word KEFIR the worst word ever? I had to look up what it was. I got it in 5, pretty much by trial and error."
Yep. I quit after two. Didn't want to bother going through the letter combos. My son went 0/6, although he does know what it is..."a milky yogurty drink"
Kefir is overpriced watery yogurt. You are paying for the water. If you need this type of product, just mix ordinary yogurt with a (cheaper) general milk. It works the same and tastes the same.
yes to confuse the murderous PLA with Taiwan is in error, Poland was annexed by Russia in the 18th Century so understandably they are concerned and that with the good czarina Catherine,
otoh, read the Torygraph or the Times, and ask yourself are they really concerned about the people's business, but that of race obsessed cliques, or pursuers of a fake science, they despise their own peoples culture and history, in favor of the newcomers, their former subjects,
they were among the worst with the Russian hoax, even though in the Torygraphs records, see the hoax they painted about General Flynn and Miss Sukhova,
"RCOCEAN - you are my enemy. You are the enemy of everyone on earth in fact, who is not part of the Putinist-Xi clique. If there is anyone who can be called an enemy of all humanity, you are it."
Well, I guess our dinner date is off then. I'm not a putinist-Xi Clique just a Good ol' fashioned American. I believe as John Adams believed.
She (the USA) goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign Independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of Freedom and Independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit."
conversely their groveling to Xi is unseemingly specially after 2020, when his bio warfare project, actually Marshall Haotian's went awry, how many British citizens died because of this,
Milwaukie guy said...
“There's a commercial on TV ("Nature's Bounty") that says a person's hair grows 570 miles during their lifetime.”
When we wake up, well, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the hair who gives “bed head” to you.
When we go out, yeah, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the hair that blows all around with you.
If we get drunk, well, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the hair that has to be held back when we puke.
But I would grow five hundred miles
And I would grow five hundred more
Just to be the hair that that grew a thousand
Miles all the way down to the floor.
Da-da da da (Da-da da da)
Da-da da da (Da-da da da)
Da-da dum diddy dum diddy dum diddy da da da.
- With apologies to the Proclaimers.
I suppose the latter is guilt over the role in the Opium Wars, which China has paid back, with interest, with their fentanyl endeavors
“ Trump to offer Putin minerals for peace”
Where exactly doe The Telegraph say these rare earth minerals are coming from? Not from us. We import them.
that seems an improbable claim, about the hair
England stood apart from Europes other tangled rows of duchys for a 1,000 years but the EU the project that everyone from Charlamagne to Hitler dreamed off, is supposed to be the ideal
Some Americans just love war and being policeman/nanny to the world. Look at how McCain (now dead thank God) and Miss Lindsey's eyes would/will light up everytime they talk/talked about "Stopping X from Conquering the world" or "We need to kill Ruskiees". These characters love jetting around the world, being a Worldboss, and getting applause from Foreigners for showering them with OUR dollars and promising them military weapons and assistance.
Pelosi fantasized publically about Machine-gunning a Russian tank column. Hillary thought Gaddafi getting raped to death was a big joke. Bush sent thousands of US Soldiers to their death for nothing.
Count me out. This Ukrainian Russian border dispute will be forgotten in 5 years. And all the dummies talking about Putin conquering the world will have gone on to the new Foreign Policy "crisis". Just like they did with Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, Korea, etc. etc.
RCOCEAN - your arguments are the same used by communist fellow travellers in the cold war. If the US were of that mind in the 1950s-70s, the holy faith of communism would have consumed the earth. Other than, maybe, the US, but I think it would have taken the US too simply because of its universality. It certainly did manage to take over some important US subcultures. Americans are not immune to energetic fads, even stupid ones like Putin worship, as we see.
This is bigger than US political tribalism.
US wholesale prices jump 3.3% as Trump tariffs hit economy ~ FT
‘Rise in Producer Price Index in July was the highest since February’
Wait, you're trying to tell me that increasing input costs to production, taxes and prices causes inflation?!
And Trump thought the Goldman economic team doesn't understand how tariffs work. 🤡🤣
Democrats spent Colorado into a huge hole.
Democrats will raise our taxes.
"Taiwan's history is closely linked to China, beginning with its incorporation into the Qing Dynasty in the 17th century." - This is how a search on Taiwan and China begins.
That's more than "four years" and the CIA has whole departments dedicated to overseeing what gets published on Wikipedia. Russian language Wikipedia is edited almost exclusively by the Ukrainians.
"It split itself off, or rather Chiangs clique managed to get the various dominant groups in Taiwan to hold out against the Reds."
The assignment was to explain how the situations are different. The "Russian militias" in Ukraine, which formed in response to the US backed coup in Kiev, managed to hold off the Maidan forces for a decade already before the Russians intervened, when goaded by Joe Biden, whose SoS told them that we were going to put nukes five minutes from Moscow when we brought Ukraine into NATO. Biden thought that the sanctions would collapse the Russian Federation, especially when they were being bled by a war that they felt that they had no choice but to fight. Biden thought it was checkmate, and that Russia would be divided up into manageable satrapies, and we would not have to buy their resources anymore, we would simply be able to take them, and oh, by the way, China would be isolated and vulnerable to a US naval blockade, especially if we control Taiwan.
And China can read the newspapers too, and sees that this is the US plan, and comes up with Belt and Road, which was a plan to survive a US naval blockade, and this was painted as aggression by a compliant US media. Now China is, uncharacteristically given their history, building a large navy to counter a potential and much discussed US blockade, and this is seen as threatening action.
The light bulb moment for me was when Dr Mearsheimer, a professor specializing in foreign policy at the University of Chicago, and former army officer, said that the tragedy of foreign policy is that we don't know who will be in charge of a rival power in twenty years, so no matter how friendly and harmless they might be today, we still can't brook their existence as a peer power, because one day, somebody bad might take over.
This is the entire case against Putin, tried in secret, of course, that he is too effective a leader for the Russian people, and one day Russia could grow to be a threat, even if it is not today, so Putin must be regime changed, and the Russian Federation broken up.
Hitler also wanted to break up the United States for this exact reason, to eliminate it as a threat. That's why he was talking to Mexico about getting their land back. It's called "disintegrative war," I learned that term from Austin Bay on Instapundit who projected the strategy onto China, and that is what we fought against Yugoslavia, what we are fighting against China, and our plan against Russia. We disintegrated the Soviet Union, and now we plan to disintigrate the Russian Federation, and China, BTW.
You can allow that the US media has been corrupted, but you think that the European media can be trusted. No, sorry, if you want to understand what is going on, you have to read history, not the media. You can listen to the media, but you have to understand it in terms of historical forces that have been at play and documented, since the Ancient Greeks invented history. There are no new motivations under the sun.
I would have a lot more respect if you just said, "Look, this stuff I am telling you is just pap for those too squeamish to understand what must be done. We have to destroy Russia and China so that we can dominate the globe, because we are the good guys and they are the bad guys because we are and God is on our side." At least you would be repeating an honest argument.
The whole thing is fascinating. It's "The Grand Chessboard" and instead of being an NPC, a "Non Player Character," you might try to understand it. A good place to start would be to read Brzezinski's book I just referenced, he was a through and through neocon and it's no coincidence that his daughter has a show on MSNBC, and maybe read "The Guns of August" about the maneuvering leading up to WWI, which was one more fight for control of Europe, to see how the start of wars are engineered.
"RCOCEAN - your arguments are the same used by communist fellow travellers in the cold war. If the US were of that mind in the 1950s-70s, the holy faith of communism would have consumed the earth. "
The American Communists never had a good argument, because they were internationalist/globalists who had supported a war to knife against Fascism in the 30s/40s, and wanted the USA to intervene against South Africa, and protect Israel. They weren't isolationists, they were just communists.
Communists believe in force, and never been pacifists.
The USSR was an explicitly expansionist power. The was their ideology. The USSR, despite its weak industry, had the 2nd biggest navy in the world. And was financing subversive groups all over the world. Further, we had wiped out Germany and Japan in WW II, and we were the only ones who could stop the USSR.
If you cant talk about foreign policy without calling others communists or nazis - you should just debate yourself.
And by the way, when I said "we could simply take them" I didn't me we ordinary Americans, no, we will still pay market prices, I meant the cronies of our government, the ones who own the media you trust so much, could simply take them and get fabulously wealthy selling Russia's oil and gas and fertilizer and uranium and platinum, etc, to us.
Now people will know who is paying for Trump’s tariffs.
Morning meeting at the Fed:
Staff: ‘Sir, any edits to your prepare remarks for Jackson Hole next week?’
Jerome Powell: ‘hold my beer’.
It's funny, it was a call from Jackson Hole to Zelensky that told him that no more money would be incoming from the IMF unless he gained control of the Donbas, and so the offensive was undertaken in the Ukrainians civil war against their Russian speaking half that led to the conflict we see today.
The more you know.
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