Hanaguma

Bullfeathers. The northern states abolished slavery in 1805, and the importation of slaves soon after. All those slaves working in the factories, right? On the railroads, in the mines. Nonsense. At the start of the Civil War, just over 10% of the total population was black slaves. And most worked in the south, in agriculture, creating relatively little product compared to free workers. So enough of the bumper sticker philosophy.

A lovely sentiment. Except the small detail that Ukraine really isn't the poster child for "democracy and freedom" now, is it? Never has been, even before the Russian invasion. At best, ranked as "partly free" by Freedom House. Any long range capability that NATO has relies almost exclusively on the USAF. It isn't a question of sympathy, that is just an easy dodge to avoid reality. Much like the good old shibboleth of "you must be a Putin puppet" if a person is not 100% on board with starting a global war to eject Russia from Ukraine.

...or Russia will hunker down, go on the defensive, and keep hold of the territory they have already taken. One thing that is historically true about the Russian army is that they are a/ stubborn on defense and b/ very good engineers at creating defense in depth. The Ukranians found out last summer sadly during their failed offensive. So... best course of action? Cut a deal and call it a day IMHO. Enough death. Plus I am not sure how much blood NATO is willing to shed over trying to return Ukraine to status quo ante.

It would be nice to stick to the topic at hand instead of your usual laundry list of talking points, dont you think? Trump called out NATO and made them a bit nervous. Good. They needed a wake up call. Hopefully it will be permanent. IF, as you say, Trump was a Putin puppet, he would never have done so. He would have let NATO quietly continue to starve their military forces of funds and materiel. Your accusation has no basis in fact. Trump also never would have warned Germany about the dangers of relying on Russia as their primary source for energy, IF he were a Russian stooge. So your crackpot theory has no basis in reality. As for destroying Russia's supplies, NATO doesn't have the long range strike capability to do that. The majority of their aircraft are strictly 'over the field of battle' types.

Big deal. Still half of what Uncle Sugar spends all on his own. Plus notice the 10 years previous. Lots of catching up to do.

Obviously Team Biden cares, as they were very VERY careful to craft an event that will hopefully disgiuse his obvious infirmity and weaknesses.

Well, Team Biden was very explicit in the rules for the debate. They made several demands that were explicitly to protect Joe and put Trump at a disadvantage- no audience, cut mikes, time limit, friendly moderators, etc. What demands did Team Trump make?

...and for the previous decade? The 2% is an estimate only for this year. Believe it when I see it. Plus they have decades of neglect to make up for.

Yeah, now they have to catch up after more than a decade of underspending on the military. Even now American spending is more than the entire rest of the organization.

To be totally accurate, Joe used a student deferment 5 times. After they ran out, he got a permanent medical deferment for his childhood asthma. Which, as you said, somehow didn't prevent him from being a lifeguard or varsity athlete.

Everybody else in his row was animated, some dancing, moving, clapping. Joe was frozen for 30 seconds with a rictus grin. Not blinking. Hands held in a very stiff and unnatural position in front of his body. All you have to do is look at a video of him even 5 years ago and notice the change. God forbid 10 years ago.

What Biden is doing is reading his party base wrong. Latest polling shows that a majority of Americans favour mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Even a majority of Hispanics support it. I guess they don't like their kids going to schools crowded with illegals, don't like rape and murder and assault, and don't like imported gangbangers terrorizing their neighbourhoods. Who'd have thought? Even the good citizens of NYC have had enough; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13542819/Pictured-sexual-assault-suspect-new-york-city-park.html

The Donald told them to get their <deleted> together years ago, and they laughed. Well, who's laughing now? Germany spending 1.4% of GDP on defence is a sad joke, the rest of NATO not much better. They are reaping what they have sown. You think Putin would have invaded in 2022 if NATO had provided any kind of credible military response capability? Doubt it.

You can take the numbers in this article with a very LARGE grain of salt. Germany, for example, actually has only about 100 battle ready tanks (Leopards). France, perhaps 200. Italy, as few as 50 that are operational. Their air forces are in similar states. They have very little in the way of lift capability or force projection. NATO members have been starving their militaries for decades. And it is now showing. They have been relying on Uncle Sugar for too long.

Reallly? When did all this happen? Wow, the governor of Louisiana has a really checkered past if all this is true... By the way, the KKK is a relic of history. You could take every KKK member in the US and they wouldn't even fill up a minor league baseball stadium. A spent force, and thank god for it.

Abortion was never a right, so it could not be taken away by the Court. Just left up to the states to decide. If you want to talk about actual oppression of women, consider; restriction of travel, forced marriage, denial of education, routine spousal assault and rape, enforced cruel dress codes, denial of property rights, etc.

I see. A ban on female pastors by a private organization is the equivalent to government mandated gender apartheid and the sytematic torture and murder of gay people. Never realized that.

Hysterical. Who are these Christians who want to kill gay folks and oppress women, I'd love to know. I guess the dreaded Louisiana Baptist Taliban is what you fear, eh? Come on, man.

Glad to see at least a couple of people trying to stop the enviro-fascists. Always loved seeing videos of bonkers activists who are blocking roadways being 'escorted' to the sidewalk by angry motorists.

Ah yes, just the same as the Taliban.... except for the murder of LGBT, the brutal oppression of women, yeah just the same. Hysterical much? Personally, I think it is kind of a dumb idea. An A4 sized paper somewhere in the classroom will probably be ignored by everyone. Sounds like just more empty political posturing to me. But hardly fascism or the revenge of the Taliban.

So yeah, a sidetrack issue. Glad we agree.

According to Statista, abortion is the 8th rank on the list of 'most important issues' to Americans. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1362236/most-important-voter-issues-us/ So yeah, a side issue relative to others.

You are probably right. I can't see Trump and Biden getting into it at the debate next week over foreign policy. IMHO the big topics are the economy and immigration, with crime and safety dropping by as well. Biden will point to various statistics touted by economists, Trump will go 'kitchen table' on the economy. Immigration can be Biden's biggest nemesis. Biden will need to side track into abortion and 'convicted felon' if he wants to succeed.

Not exactly unbiased, but.... definitely Japanese. Ladies here have the advantage of looking good for a long time. It is easy to find very fit, attractive, elegant ladies well into their 40s or 50s. The general standard is very high. I teach in a girls' university, and the number of girls who would be considered obese by western standards is miniscule- less than 2% for sure.

I think my point went sailing way over your head. Farage was just an example. My assertion is that you are supportive of Sir Rod flapping his gums because you agree with what he is saying. Would you support him if he said something you disagreed with? Maybe something like "and a big congratulations to the ASD on their big win last week!"