Polite Politics

[SnarkyGoblin]

2 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I don't watch Marvel movies. But yes, I believe the war should be brought to a humanitarian conclusion. The only reason hundreds of thousands of people are continuing to die is because of Western military intervention. End the killing now. Americans are beginning to turn against Ukraine because they see all this is doing is costing our own country billions. Billions for Ukraine, $600 for families in Maui. 

lol - cause people of your political leanings are always so concerned about world-wide US military spending.  If it was about the money, I'm sure there's some military fat in other areas to cut that could make the spending net-0.  And heck - it's helping our defense industry, too!  Defense stocks are swimming in profits!

And I also believe the war should end - but I don't think you understand the implications if countries can just take over smaller ones with force.

[Andie]

The Ukrainian begger bowl will be out at the city gates of DC again.  Really?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/politics/zelensky-washington-meetings-congress/index.html

[hawkstwelve]

Count me in the apparently dwindling number of Republicans who still support the Ukraine war.

Does anybody think it's just a coincidence that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, which is Putin's birthday, causing America's short attention span to get solely focused on the Middle East? Is it just a coincidence that we are now being forced to "choose" between supporting Israel or supporting Ukraine, as if 5% of our military budget is simply too big of an ask?

Another question: If we ditch Ukraine and Putin decides he'll invade a NATO country, like Poland or the Baltics, will the same Republicans who are calling to end Ukrainian support also take responsibility when American troops are actually required to respond to an invasion of a NATO country? Will there be any sort of reflection like, "Shoot, maybe we should have kept giving them ammunition and weaponry so we could have avoided boots on the ground" while we are staring down the barrel of being involved in potentially four different conflicts (China/Taiwan, Israel/Hamas, Russia/NATO, Venezuela/Guyana)? Or will those Republicans just shrug and act like their inability to see a bigger picture didn't result in a continued, prolonged war?

I'm sorry, but Republicans calling for the end of supporting Ukraine are just appealing to the isolationist tendencies of the MAGA base while completely disregarding potential ramifications of such an action. It's as if we learned absolutely nothing from the disastrous Afghanistan pullout just two short years ago. Talk about a short attention span...

[Anti Marine Layer]

As I saw somewhere, the real battle is not Republicans vs Democrats or even left vs right. It's good vs evil or God vs Satan. Spiritual forces are at work. America is going to fall under God's judgment if they don't get things together soon. As the founders said we were to be like a 2nd Israel and horrible stuff happened to Israel when they turned against God. 

I will be praying for intercession. 

[Chewbacca Defense]

1 hour ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

I don't watch Marvel movies. But yes, I believe the war should be brought to a humanitarian conclusion. The only reason hundreds of thousands of people are continuing to die is because of Western military intervention. End the killing now. Americans are beginning to turn against Ukraine because they see all this is doing is costing our own country billions. Billions for Ukraine, $600 for families in Maui. The definition of an America Last agenda. 

get off the $600 for Maui families already....that was an immediate payment for the families to get food and clothing, and that type of payment is common for all natural disasters while they get support in place...

As of early October, almost 178M has been given (see article below).  I'm sure that as they go through and figure things out, that number will trend upwards.  I think FEMA payments for Katrina went on for years.  Katrina also saw massive fraud, so hopefully better safeguards are in place to make sure people are getting what they need and not Rolex Watches and Gucci bags.

 

https://mauinow.com/2023/10/07/177-million-in-federal-assistance-provided-so-far-to-maui-fire-survivors/

Since the Maui wildfires of Aug. 8, more than $177 million in federal assistance has been approved for 6,210 households, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA is working closely with Maui County, the State of Hawaiʻi and federal and nonprofit partners on the disaster recovery.

The $177.8 million is broken down as follows:

• $29,942,902 in FEMA assistance approved for individuals and households, including:
  • $14,388,910 approved for housing assistance
  • $15,553,991 approved for Other Needs Assistance
• $147,824,500 in US Small Business Administration disaster loans approved for affected Maui homeowners, renters and businesses.

 

 

[SnarkyGoblin]

6 minutes ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

As I saw somewhere, the real battle is not Republicans vs Democrats or even left vs right. It's good vs evil or God vs Satan. Spiritual forces are at work. America is going to fall under God's judgment if they don't get things together soon. As the founders said we were to be like a 2nd Israel and horrible stuff happened to Israel when they turned against God. 

I will be praying for intercession. 

Are you ok?

And sorry to tell you - God doesn't give a shhiittt.  If he did, he would have intervened during the Crusades.

[SnarkyGoblin]

19 minutes ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

As I saw somewhere, the real battle is not Republicans vs Democrats or even left vs right. It's good vs evil or God vs Satan. Spiritual forces are at work. America is going to fall under God's judgment if they don't get things together soon. As the founders said we were to be like a 2nd Israel and horrible stuff happened to Israel when they turned against God. 

I will be praying for intercession. 

Sounds like you might be a close follower of the ReAwaken movement.  

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/michael-flynn-reawaken-america-tour/

Quote

Flynn warned the crowd that they were in the midst of a “spiritual war” and a “political war” and urged people to get involved.

ReAwaken America was launched by Flynn, a former White House national security adviser, and Oklahoma entrepreneur Clay Clark a few months after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol failed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Attendees and speakers still insist — against all evidence and dozens of court rulings — that Donald Trump rightfully won.

Since early last year, the ReAwaken America Tour has carried its message of a country under siege to tens of thousands of people in 15 cities and towns. The tour serves as a traveling roadshow and recruiting tool for an ascendant Christian nationalist movement that’s wrapped itself in God, patriotism and politics and has grown in power and influence inside the Republican Party.

In the version of America laid out at the ReAwaken tour, Christianity should be at the center of American life and institutions. Instead, it’s under attack, and attendees need to fight to restore the nation’s Christian roots. It’s a message repeated over and over at ReAwaken — one that upends the constitutional ideal of a pluralist democracy. But it’s a message that is taking hold.
......

ReAwaken acts as a petri dish for Christian nationalism and pushes the idea that there’s a battle underway between good and evil forces. Those who are considered evil include government officials and Democrats.

It’s “a pep rally on spiritual steroids” said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University in Michigan, who studies evangelicalism.

ReAwaken often appears in churches with speakers addressing attendees from the pulpit. The Batavia show was staged on the grounds of a church, after faith and community leaders in nearby Rochester told organizers they weren’t welcome.

Inside a revival tent set up outside, people sat in white folding chairs packed so tightly the rows between were nearly impassable. From the stage, speakers stirred up fear and hatred. Immigrants are rushing over the border “to take your place,” one said. Homosexuals and pedophiles are classified in the same category: sinful people who don’t honor God. Life-saving vaccines are creating “a D**n genocide.” “The enemy wants to muzzle you,” another speaker warned. “He wants to shut your mouth.”

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3 hours ago, hawkstwelve said:

Count me in the apparently dwindling number of Republicans who still support the Ukraine war.

Does anybody think it's just a coincidence that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, which is Putin's birthday, causing America's short attention span to get solely focused on the Middle East? Is it just a coincidence that we are now being forced to "choose" between supporting Israel or supporting Ukraine, as if 5% of our military budget is simply too big of an ask?

Another question: If we ditch Ukraine and Putin decides he'll invade a NATO country, like Poland or the Baltics, will the same Republicans who are calling to end Ukrainian support also take responsibility when American troops are actually required to respond to an invasion of a NATO country? Will there be any sort of reflection like, "Shoot, maybe we should have kept giving them ammunition and weaponry so we could have avoided boots on the ground" while we are staring down the barrel of being involved in potentially four different conflicts (China/Taiwan, Israel/Hamas, Russia/NATO, Venezuela/Guyana)? Or will those Republicans just shrug and act like their inability to see a bigger picture didn't result in a continued, prolonged war?

I'm sorry, but Republicans calling for the end of supporting Ukraine are just appealing to the isolationist tendencies of the MAGA base while completely disregarding potential ramifications of such an action. It's as if we learned absolutely nothing from the disastrous Afghanistan pullout just two short years ago. Talk about a short attention span...

Fact is none of this would have happened had Trump been re-elected. We can all acknowledge this fact. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

4 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

lol - cause people of your political leanings are always so concerned about world-wide US military spending.  If it was about the money, I'm sure there's some military fat in other areas to cut that could make the spending net-0.  And heck - it's helping our defense industry, too!  Defense stocks are swimming in profits!

And I also believe the war should end - but I don't think you understand the implications if countries can just take over smaller ones with force.

We should slash our military budget and invest that money in the CITIZENS of the USA. 

[SilverFallsAndrew]

2 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Sounds like you might be a close follower of the ReAwaken movement.  

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/michael-flynn-reawaken-america-tour/

As someone who has been adjacent to the Christian Right their entire life, I can tell you at no other point in my lifetime (Almost 40 years.), has the Christian right had less power, been less organized, or more irrelevant. Just another strawman the left and their media proxies are gaslighting us with.

[roadtonowhere08]

5 hours ago, hawkstwelve said:

Count me in the apparently dwindling number of Republicans who still support the Ukraine war.

Does anybody think it's just a coincidence that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, which is Putin's birthday, causing America's short attention span to get solely focused on the Middle East? Is it just a coincidence that we are now being forced to "choose" between supporting Israel or supporting Ukraine, as if 5% of our military budget is simply too big of an ask?

Another question: If we ditch Ukraine and Putin decides he'll invade a NATO country, like Poland or the Baltics, will the same Republicans who are calling to end Ukrainian support also take responsibility when American troops are actually required to respond to an invasion of a NATO country? Will there be any sort of reflection like, "Shoot, maybe we should have kept giving them ammunition and weaponry so we could have avoided boots on the ground" while we are staring down the barrel of being involved in potentially four different conflicts (China/Taiwan, Israel/Hamas, Russia/NATO, Venezuela/Guyana)? Or will those Republicans just shrug and act like their inability to see a bigger picture didn't result in a continued, prolonged war?

I'm sorry, but Republicans calling for the end of supporting Ukraine are just appealing to the isolationist tendencies of the MAGA base while completely disregarding potential ramifications of such an action. It's as if we learned absolutely nothing from the disastrous Afghanistan pullout just two short years ago. Talk about a short attention span...

Amen!

I am always weary and suspicious of our government's use of the military, but I really thought that helping allies against outright invasions against known hostile foreign governments was kind of the bare minimum a superpower like the U.S. could do.

[SnarkyGoblin]

1 hour ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

As someone who has been adjacent to the Christian Right their entire life, I can tell you at no other point in my lifetime (Almost 40 years.), has the Christian right had less power, been less organized, or more irrelevant. Just another strawman the left and their media proxies are gaslighting us with.

With no good response, ignore the content of the post and attack the media.

You never fail.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

3 minutes ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

With no good response, ignore the content of the post and attack the media.

You never fail.

Religious folk praying for spiritual revival. Not worried about it. 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

10 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Religious folk praying for spiritual revival. Not worried about it. 

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

I still remember Trump's SOTU speech before China released their bio weapon across the world  The economy was booming and Bill Maher (same guy who makes fun of the idiotic left now) said he hoped there would be a recession so Trump would lose. 

Trump said 7 million people were able to get off of food stamps and the Democrats cringed about it. Loss of slaves to welfare dependency is not something they can tolerate.

However HuffPo wants you to believe his tax cuts made the rich richer and the poor poorer. Leftists must have dementia or something about how good the economy was under Trump. The covid jab can do that to you. 

When you tax the rich they will raise prices to compensate. When you print out billions of dollars of money for progressive bills, that causes inflation. However, they no longer teach economics anymore.

Good thing Manchin stopped BBB.

[Anti Marine Layer]

3 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

With no good response, ignore the content of the post and attack the media.

You never fail.

The left-wing media is becoming like Pravda. There's no way the 2020 election could have been the "most secure in history" when even the left-wing media sites (prior to 2020) used to say absentee/mail in ballots are prone to fraud (which could not necessarily be detected even by recounts). I'm not saying it was stolen, but as the wise owl on the Tootsie Roll Pop commercial says "The world may never know".

Anyone who does not see George Orwell's 1984 novel becoming a reality has been blinded to the truth.

[SnarkyGoblin]

Still wearing 'em.

[roadtonowhere08]

50 minutes ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Still wearing 'em.

Found them on etsy! Only $183!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/896297987/poulaines-with-distinctive-curved-points

[roadtonowhere08]

4 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

 

And who was instrumental in him rising to power? 

 and 

Yay!!!

[Andie]

No respectable cowboy would be seen dead in these pimp boots. 
Low saddle heel, flat rounded toe, required equipment for the ranch. Grew up with working cowboys. Those boots belong in a pimpmobile!

 

[Iceresistance]

Are New York and California competing on who becomes a Dictatorship-like state first??

 

Can Kathy Hochul’s Health Department detain New Yorkers without due process? (msn.com)

[Rubus Leucodermis]

8 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Still wearing 'em.

At least they are not white this time.

[Andie]

1 hour ago, Iceresistance said:

Are New York and California competing on who becomes a Dictatorship-like state first??

 

Can Kathy Hochul’s Health Department detain New Yorkers without due process? (msn.com)

“Your papers, please?”

[SilverFallsAndrew]

Absolute madman

[Iceresistance]

That was back in 2019

[Deweydog]

1 minute ago, Iceresistance said:

That was back in 2019

He’s much, much saner now

[SnarkyGoblin]

WW2 doc that just hit Netflix is really good so far.   They did a remarkable job restoring the video.

[Andie]

Interesting year.  
This year has seen other Democratic politicians also abandon the party, including Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, West Virginia lawmaker Elliott Pritt, Georgia lawmaker Mesha Mainor, North Carolina lawmaker Tricia Cotham and Louisiana lawmaker Francis Thompson.

Clearly not everyone isn’t thrilled with the Left.  

[Anti Marine Layer]

Wokeism for you

The Fall and Redemption

This creed also mimics Christian salvation history. The straight white male is the phallic serpent in the Garden. In one place after another, these aggressive oppressors found a pre-lapsarian paradise. And in each case, we paved it and made it a parking lot.

To keep up this myth of the Fall, and its tempter, progressives have to ignore a lot of facts. They have to whitewash:

• The fact of Arab-run slavery in Africa before Europeans arrived.
• The cruelties and slaughters of the Muslim conquests from Spain to India.
• The savage wars, routine torture, and environmental devastation that marked the lives of North American Indians.
• The ritual cannibalism practiced by the genocidal Aztecs.
• The theological tyranny wielded by upper-class Hindus over millions of “untouchables.”

Likewise in sexual politics, social justice warriors must wish away:

• The brutal cost of abortion in innocent lives and women’s mental health.
• The collapse of the human birthrate everywhere that feminism has arrived.
• The decline of marriage, and the explosion of single mothers dependent on the government.
• The obsession of gay male culture with promiscuity and youth, including underage boys.
• The abundant evidence that biological sex is real, and “trans” fantasies are symptoms of mental illness.

[Anti Marine Layer]

The left is really afraid of the "Christian nationalists." Terrified. So scared they must arrest people praying in front of abortion clinics, since they are horrified the prayers could actually work and result in new pro-lifers endangering their holy sacrament of baby killing or women changing their minds.

[Andie]

Zelenskyy told U.S. Senators that Ukraine is considering conscription of men over 40 — Bloomberg
 

 

[Iceresistance]

6 minutes ago, Andie said:

Zelenskyy told U.S. Senators that Ukraine is considering conscription of men over 40 — Bloomberg

What does that mean? Sorry for a dumb question, but I am not as knowledgeable for mobilization compared to other sectors of the war side of history

[roadtonowhere08]

12 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

What does that mean? Sorry for a dumb question, but I am not as knowledgeable for mobilization compared to other sectors of the war side of history

Any man over 40 = pick up gun and fight or get into big trouble.

[roadtonowhere08]

2 hours ago, Andie said:

Clearly not everyone isn’t thrilled with the Left.  

Nor should they be.  Both sides are a joke because they are cowardly dictated by the lunatic fringe.

[Iceresistance]

7 minutes ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

Any man over 40 = pick up gun and fight or get into big trouble.

Obviously, any army needs fit men to fight for their country.

 

Also, Russia has started the Winter Offensive version 2.

[roadtonowhere08]

53 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

Obviously, any army needs fit men to fight for their country.

 

Also, Russia has started the Winter Offensive version 2.

You fight with what you have.  Ukraine does not have the luxury of benefitting from a century plus of colonialization, a powerful economy, and thousands of miles of ocean to keep it safe like we do.

[roadtonowhere08]

With the usual propaganda from all sides at all times filter on, this report on the human and hardware cost of the war in Ukraine is pretty sobering:

https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2023/12/13/u-s-intelligence-assesses-russia-lost-nearly-87-of-the-total-committed-personnel-in-the-ukraine-war/

- 320,000 Russian troops killed or injured

- 70,000 Ukrainian troops killed

And for what?

[Andie]

9 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

What does that mean? Sorry for a dumb question, but I am not as knowledgeable for mobilization compared to other sectors of the war side of history

Conscription is historically a term used for men in their 20’s, usually  under 25,  however WW2 age was higher than normal I think.  

[Andie]

7 hours ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

With the usual propaganda from all sides at all times filter on, this report on the human and hardware cost of the war in Ukraine is pretty sobering:

https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2023/12/13/u-s-intelligence-assesses-russia-lost-nearly-87-of-the-total-committed-personnel-in-the-ukraine-war/

- 320,000 Russian troops killed or injured

- 70,000 Ukrainian troops killed

And for what?

If close to true, Russia is losing both men and the war through attrition.  The Ukraine will take more to to hold onto it in perpetuity.   Of course Putin could care less about the cost in manpower.  He has to save face and not lose the land and slink back to Moscow.  

Curious thing. Putin was rumored very ill and there’s been little seen of him or heard from the Kremlin. Is he still in the drivers seat? 

[Iceresistance]

21 minutes ago, Andie said:

If close to true, Russia is losing both men and the war through attrition.  The Ukraine will take more to to hold onto it in perpetuity.   Of course Putin could care less about the cost in manpower.  He has to save face and not lose the land and slink back to Moscow.  

Curious thing. Putin was rumored very ill and there’s been little seen of him or heard from the Kremlin. Is he still in the drivers seat? 

Yeah, the Russian Invasion of Ukraine has brutally exposed how deeply corrupt the Russian government (and their army) really is. Their tanks are literally turret tossers, even the seemingly almighty T-90s are literally turret tossing.