heybruce

Many of the supporters and/or defenders of Russia's illegitimate invasion of Ukraine rely on the "sphere of influence" justification. Evidence shows that both Russia's and China's concepts of sphere of influence allows them to dominate nearby nations and crush those that do not acquiesce to their domination. The United States could try to rely on such a concept, but I don't think Canada or Mexico would go along. In fact I think both Canada and Mexico would find a realpolitik way to tell the United States to F***-Off, and rightly so. Sphere of influence should imply an opportunity and willingness of nations to work with their neighbors, not dominate them. I think EU nations are more or less in agreement with my concept of sphere of influence. Those nations that have legitimate fears of Russian aggression seem especially keen on supporting Ukraine in its fight to exist as an independent nation. Supporting such a right to exist as an independent nation can come at a high cost; financially for the west and in blood for Ukraine. However so long as Ukraine is willing to pay the price for its existence I think the west should support it. A world in which three great powers dominate their neighbors and engage in a perpetual fight for total global hegemony is the back story of "1984". It is not a happy story.

The Mueller report did not find proof that Trump himself colluded with Russia. It did not find proof that no one in the Trump campaign did not collude, and it definitely did not find that there was no obstruction of justice. The FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop story was not verified, and to this day does not "know" that it was not part of a hack and leak operation. Most of the contents of the hard drive have not been verified. The first link of your Politico link is: "More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” " What is dishonest about that?

Do you read the nonsense you are providing links to? Are you aware that the link it is an opinion piece? Did you notice that the opinions are not supported by links provided by the author?

"The GOP want to reduce military spending..." Got a source for that claim?

You replied to my post "Is that a joke? Do you think Kim Jong Un, or any of the past North Korean leaders, would surrender their tyrannical dictatorship to allow democracy?" You edited it down to "Is that a joke?" then replied with "I don't believe so, I think it was a fairly valid dig at various excursions "the west" has indulged in over the years." Clearly you had no intelligent reply to my post, so you took it out of context. Per your suggestion, I have reported you. BTW: What you call sarcasm was actually Saanim's attempt to deflect the topic away from North Korea and it's history of threatening war. You know; the current topic. The topic you also attempted to deflect away from.

You were called out for posting some dumb things, specifically "Apart of that they tried to defend themselves when their country was bombed to rubble?" and "Why not to help them with democracy as helped others so many times?" Owe up to it. Don't pretend the replies were not on target.

First and final notice: Edit one of my posts into a wildly out of context snippet before replying once more and I will report you. I'm tired of posters who lack the intelligence to reply to my posts shredding them into something they think they can reply to.

As was pointed out, North Korea wasn't defending itself, it invaded South Korea. I assume you live in a weird world in which wars of aggression count as defensive. Is that a joke? Do you think Kim Jong Un, or any of the past North Korean leaders, would surrender their tyrannical dictatorship to allow democracy?

"It's unbelievable but true," he said. "We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks." Big difference: The German tanks aren't being used to invade Russia, they're being used on Russians who invaded Ukraine.

You beat me to it: Trump got pledges that weren't kept. It's only fair, Trump routinely gives pledges that he doesn't keep.

Standard North Korea play-book: Un repeatedly reminds his people that only he can protect them from the horrors of prosperity and democracy that exist in South Korea.

I don't know if he's a fascist or just an ambitious, opportunistic populist who plays fast and loose with taxpayer's money. He used Florida taxpayer money to fly a group of Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts in an obvious election stunt. He uses his control of Florida's Republican legislature to pass laws that get rejected in court, after a robust defense at taxpayer's expense, but which also make him a hero of the right and frequent guest on Faux News. He spends taxpayer money on environmental issues in Florida but does nothing to restrict the agricultural run-off and over-development that is causing the environmental issues. He had tough new Category 5 Hurricane building standards passed after Hurricane Michael wiped out Mexico Beach Florida, then had the standards removed two years later when builders and home buyers complained. I wouldn't care about this if these people didn't routinely ask for billions of dollars in Federal Disaster Assistance every time a hurricane wipes out poorly constructed homes built in hazardous areas. DeSantis doesn't solve problems, but he's real good at making headlines.

Perhaps he can, but he isn't doing so.

Going all the way to New Zealand to find examples of heterosexual teacher-student relations. The topic is about Florida and the grooming this censorship is supposed to prevent is homosexual/transexual/political.

I agree the availability of junk food is contributing to obesity, but I think for young people the biggest problem is the obsession with electronics. Playing used to mean going outside and doing something physically active; now children think you are committing child abuse if you tell them to put down the phone and do something physical.

US President's have been trying to get other NATO countries to increase defense spending for many years before Trump. However other President's used diplomacy, Trump used threats and name-and-shame on international news. Trump was no more effective in getting actual defense spending increases, but he did a good job of undermining the alliance.

This is something informed people have known for years. For people who watch Faux News and think pundits are reporters, this is new information that they won't believe.

True. Because DeSantis has presidential aspirations he's playing to a national audience at Florida taxpayer expense while ignoring Florida's needs.

Should I have specified homosexual grooming? Should I have specified in Florida, which is the state this topic is about? From your first link: "Hundreds of Chicago teachers and school officials sexually groomed and assaulted students last school year, according to a report released this week." "The Chicago Public Schools Office of the Inspector General released its annual report Sunday, saying it substantiated more than 300 misconduct allegations out of more than 600 complaints for the 2021-22 school year." The news story does not specify what kind of "sexually grooming and assaulted" it is referring to. From the few examples given it appears to be male teachers or teachers of an unspecified sex (most likely male) having sex or inappropriate relations with 16 and 17 year old female students. That's horrible, illegal, and should be aggressively prosecuted, but that's not what this topic is about. Your second source is about a part-time teacher sharing child pornography of him having sex with a 13 year old boy. Again, horrible, illegal and should be aggressively prosecuted, but no mention of the child being a student of the pedophile or the of acts involving any school. The fact that you can't come up with pertinent, on-topic examples shows how rare it is. Heterosexuals having sex with students happens, and should be prosecuted, but that is not what the DeSantis law is about.

???????????? An email with a grade school type grammatical error showing a level of scholarship that could be achieved by reading a few news articles in 2014. Is that all you've got? BTW: If Ted Cruz actually believe what he said he's lost touch with reality, or at least legitimate news sources. I think it is more likely that he assumes the Fox News audience are uninformed and gullible.

Betcha can't give one credible example of school children being groomed by teachers. Extra points if it is an example of something that would have been prevented by removing books from classrooms, or any part of the just-for-show law passed by DeSantis.

Of course it's a scandal, as is Pence's mishandling of classified. However neither of these scandals compare with intentionally hiding classified, lying about possessing classified, and refusing to return classified. That's criminal.

Perhaps the class of people who want to read books not on a government approved list. Any luck coming up with examples of grooming or indoctrination that justify this DeSantis nonsense?

Ukraine wanted NATO membership because Russia was threatening it. Why do some people have so much trouble grasping the obvious. Another claim that the US was involved in Ukraine's revolution. Of course you have no proof, it's just something put out by Russian propaganda that you choose to believe. Why not just give Ukrainians credit for rejecting the Russian puppet government in Kiev? "In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests (known as Euromaidan) erupted in response to President Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. In February of that year, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) had overwhelmingly approved finalizing the agreement with the EU.[26] Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it.[27]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

Funny, the name that immediately sprang to mind is Trump. Is he a leftist?