April 22, 2022

The MTG hearing on whether or not she should be barred from office

is concerning. If she is found to be eligible to hold office, she will say she was vindicated and use it to further fundraise and as a mandate to double down.
On the other hand if the judge recommends that she be disqualified from holding office it could set a dangerous precedent that is equally bad.
She has not been charged , let alone convicted of insurrection or anything like it.

If states can decide that somebody is not eligible to hold office based on the fact they think that person violated the 14th amendment, what is there to stop dumbfuckistan states to declare democrats should be disqualified because they stole the election and violated the 14th amendment by denying Trump his presidency ?

April 22, 2022

I think the war in Ukraine is reaching a turning point.

A number of things were revealed today making me think that. First, the main issue in providing the Ukrainians with weaponry was that one had to find soviet Era things still in working order and transfer it to them. There is a limited supply of that.

A good example is the artillery. Ukraine was using equipment firing 152 mm rounds like the Russian ones do. We are now sending them howitzers shooting 155 mm rounds, US and NATO standard.

We have a vast supply of this kind of ammo. It's going to be a game changer. With NATO behind them Ukraine will outsupply Russia.

They also now have state of the art drone systems so new its classified and was custom designed for them.

Today, one of the senators on the Intel committee was interviewed by Nicole Wallace and also said Ukraine had a lot of assistance from the US on intelligence gathering. He did not want to elaborate for obvious reasons.

April 16, 2022

Regarding these texts between meadows, lee and roy

I just finished reading the whole thing. I honestly do not think it's going to be that impactful in terms of indicting any of them. Obviously, they were trying to find ways to overturn the election but were very careful in these texts to emphasize it had to be via legal challenges and pass muster in terms of the constitution.

You can clearly see, they were desperately hoping that somebody would find a justification to send an alternate slate of electors, challenge the elections in states one way or another.

However, as it became clear it was just a shit show and neither Powell or Giuliani could back up what they were saying with actual proof, both Roy and Meadows started to freak out realizing they were going into coup territory.

If anything, with a good lawyer these two would be able to use that as a defense if they were accused of conspiracy.

It's not so clear that it helps Trump for his defense. They clearly portray him as completely willing to push false claims in order to overturn the election. So, that may be the silver lining there.

April 6, 2022

The media needs to show the actual videos of slaughtered civilians

not hide behind the bullshit argument "we made the editorial decision not to show it because it's horrible " as I heard on Nicole Wallace show. It's true across the media. Yet you can find the video Zelensky showed at the UN on YouTube.
Everybody needs to see that, no matter how horrible. Sanitizing the war by censoring the horrible stuff is what led to apathy about the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It's repeating again.

March 27, 2022

Imagine the potential showdown if Ginni Thomas is subpoenaed.

by the 1/6 committee and she refuses to show up. If it gets referred to justice and then ends up in court , her husband could potentially rule on it.. Take about a conflict of interest.

March 22, 2022

Is there one republican on Judge Jackson hearing

who actually asked legitimate questions that are pertinent to Judge Jackson nomination to the Supreme Court or are they all spewing right wing hate ?
I can't bring myself to watch..

March 9, 2022

Hopefully the tech described in this article has been perfected and is operational..

https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-successfully-intercepts-icbm-ship-launched-missile-historic/story?id=74248760

In a first-of-its-kind test, the United States has successfully used a small, ship-fired missile to intercept a target Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), according to the Missile Defense Agency. The successful test shows the U.S. military now has another missile defense system capable of defending against North Korean ICBMs aimed at the United States.

This was in 2020. That particular test was with a system deployed from a navy ship. Apparently, we also have ground-based ones. Back then, the threat was possible North Korea launches of ICBMs.

Now, obviously North Korea, if they had ICBMs (I don't think they do, just medium range missiles) would be only a few of them. Russia can launch 6000 at a time.

If we have not ramped up since 2020, the current events may motivate the US to gear up. I do not know how many years it would take to have enough of these deployed and effectively have an iron dome neutering any saber rattling by Putin.

Nevertheless, its encouraging and it may mean that in the short to medium term (a generation?), ICBMS will be rendered useless.

March 3, 2022

President Biden SOTU speech was so incredibly good

It was so well received by the vast majority of americans, greater than 70 % at last count depending on which poll you look at. Even the Washington Time had a good article about it.

In times of crisis, President Biden unique ability to connect with people is an asset that maybe the white house should use more. Not only is he excellent at it, that form of communication - i.e big, televised speech on every network and cable outlets reaches everybody regardless of their political leanings, it allows for bypassing the usual media bias.

Unsurprisingly when told the truth in a rational and empathetic way people understand it. This reminded me (sort of, I was not born) of the FDR fireplace chats.

I wonder if the white house could come up with a way to do something similar so that they can stay connected with the public. The question of course is, would the networks carry it if it was a regular thing or is this kind of gravitas only a once-a-year thing provided by the SOTU?

March 2, 2022

Would NATO intervene if Putin triggers article 5 by invading a NATO country

or will there be some advocating for not doing so in fears of triggering ww3/ nuclear war ?

If that's the case Putin holds all the cards and there is nothing that can be done.

March 2, 2022

Is there a trigger for actual military intervention ?

I know that we don't want to get involved directly for fear of triggering an all out war. I do wonder if that calculus changes if Putin starts mass killings by leveling cities with millions of people in it like Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Do we just stand there watching, wearing sunflowers and blue and yellow or does this motivates NATO to establish air superiority to stop it ? We did it during the Bosnian wars over Sarajevo.

It all hinges on whether or not western powers believe Putin would use nukes if we ground his air force over Ukraine.