candide

Another win for patriots!

17 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. I thought Bannon would be all for Trump to lose, but then I realised that I was thinking of Bolton.

 

Far as I know many in the GOP despise Trump as much as the Dems do. After all, they are part of the swamp too.

Exactly! Trumpers and non-Trumpers are part of the same GOP swamp! 😃

2 hours ago, impulse said:

 

I wonder if they'll get that Dominion money back after a Georgia court case showed you actually can hack the machines with a Bic pen and a $10 USB chip?

 

But only after analysing the system in a lab for months.... 😃

56 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

It is true.  Even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut.

 

Not true. The changes have been made under Trump.

Edit

Actually it took 4 years to progressively implement the system, until the switch on 1 January 2021, so nothing to do with the Biden administration.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/nibrs-estimation-project

42 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

Good news if you believe the statistics.  But the FBI's recent changes to the Uniform Crime Reporting Program have made it anything but uniform, with a lot of local enforcement agencies struggling with the system, and thousands of them don't even report.

 

So... The FBI is using more estimates (guesses, and in the leadup to an election)...  Color me skeptical of any statistics coming out of the Biden DOJ.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/fbi-data-shows-us-crime-plummeted-2023

 

 

 

 

 

The "recent changes" occurred on 1st Jan. 2021 (so still under the Trump administration, BTW).

It means the 2023 data are comparable to the 2021 and 2022 data. 

7 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

There’s some very good news.

 

Are we going to do the ‘On who’s watch is this happening on’ thing?

No, it will be 'stats rigged by the left-wing'! 😊

On 4/22/2024 at 1:08 AM, hotchilli said:

Makes no difference what the people think, want, or vote for...  the conservative elites along with the senate decide what happens.

On 4/22/2024 at 5:59 AM, kingstonkid said:

It will be interesting to see who is put in the Senate.  Once that is decided then it will be a case of who can win.  You could see MFP get a huge majority so that the Senate has little effect.

 

Remember this is going to be a smaler senate than they have now

Due to the nomination process, the Senate will likely be controlled by the conservative elite. However, as I understand, the new Senate will not elect the PM any more.

On 4/21/2024 at 9:44 PM, webfact said:

The poll shows 45.1% of the male and 46.1% of the female respondents say they will not vote for either Move Forward or Pheu Thai, but will vote for the other parties

It would have been interesting to know for which party they would vote....

It seems so easy for a kid to get a gun in Texas that it Isn't even mentioned how he got it

6 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

Sarcasm indeed - I do have a little knowledge on the subject matter but its true that what it boils down to is very simple. The right of a sovereign state to determine its own future through a democratically elected government.

 

People can argue all they want about the why's and wherefore's but Ukraine is a sovereign nation that has every right to seek affiliations and protections from and with whoever they choose.  The fact that Putin views those affiliations as a threat is simply something that exists in his mind.  If his and previous Russian regimes weren't a threat, there would be no need for NATO or for his neighbours to seek protection from others.  England and France were enemies for centuries but its 2024, the British Empire is long gone and the two countries no longer feel the need to protect themselves from each other.

 

There are in's and out's and twists and turn but the carve up after WW2 consisted mainly of the West securing autonomy for some states on its side of the deal and Russia, or should I say the USSR, gaining ground on their side - Berlin was a perfect example.  Over the years it has been Russia that has had hostile expansionist aims - not others.  The expansion of democratic states has been voluntary and free whereas Russia's affiliations have been created by force.  If you carried out an in depth analysis of the problems in the Balkans since WW2, you would find that they have their roots in old alliances and are very much influenced and on some occasions, financed by Russia.  Those states, much the same as Ukraine, have a perfect right to choose their destiny.

 

Returning to the current conflict between Russia (Putin) and Ukraine - the Ukranian people showed very clearly which direction they wanted to take during Maidan uprising in 2013/14 which ousted a Russia leaning government. It was no coincidence that Putin annexed Crimea directly afterwards. That the West didn't see that coming was shameful.

 

Putin's aims are the reconstruction of Soviet borders - not ideologically, that would threaten his power, but geographically.  He does not seek to attain that through encouragement, he is attempting to do it by force and infiltration. He has shown that his word means nothing and that he can't be trusted.  If the West doesn't stand up to him now, there will be a much bigger fight in the future.  By stand up to him, I mean kicking him out of all of Ukraine's territory, including Crimea.

 

The sad and vexing part of all this is that it is totally unecessary.  That states are still expansionist well into the 21st Century is just plain crazy.

Putin's problem is that his Russia has no soft power. 

Russia is a failed State which attracts no one.

Ex in Europe, which people would prefer Russia's boots and economy, to the laws and wealth of the EU?

3 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

 

For context on the political role and ideological purpose of NATO as a vector of the US global hegemon, I recommend reading Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was also very clear in this respect during an interview with CNN last month:

03:55: "We cannot afford [for] Russia to win this war. Otherwise the US and European interests will be very damaged. It is not a matter of generosity alone … of supporting Ukraine because we love Ukrainian people. It is in our own interest. And it is also in the interest of the US as a global player."

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2024/03/25/amanpour-josep-borrell.cnn

Trump’s multipolar vision means the end of “US as a global player” as understood under the doctrine which has prevailed for the past sixty years. A US withdrawal from NATO will be a key component of this reversal.

Trump's "vision"¡ Ahem! Trump was rather erratic, but led by three principles:

- undo what Obama did or initiated, ex NAFTA, replaced by something similar under another name, TPP...

- rather than multipolar, he was against multinational organisations  because he thought that USA, as the largest economy, could exert more power in bilateral negotiations. That's why, for example, he did not like the EU, the UN, etc..

- the third principle was show-business, that is mediatic coups. However, he completely overestimated his capabilities, and was fooled by Kim, Putin, Xi, and also Netanyahu (luckily, his aides convinced him to prevent Netanyahu from annexing the territories in the "peace" agreement.

4 minutes ago, Excogitator said:

Do you even know how to read?

 

I am talking about the maga-crowd, as in the maga-movement.

 

Only 24% of Americans have positive views of the MAGA movement, and even fewer are actual members. That's not half the country.

He certainly knows how to read but that's his trolling m.o. to distort what has been posted.