John Drake

I favor continuing to support Ukraine. I think Russia should be defeated. I also support Nato. That said, you can go back to when Bill Clinton was president and there were warnings this day would come, if Europeans refused to significantly increase their contribution to Nato readiness. Even back then, Clinton and others warned that European footdragging would eventually cause an American taxpayer revolt. And now it's happened.

The same guy was crying, literally, about Vance yesterday. See the two videos on this link.

What about high risk for health and air pollution?

Elon Musk's life and his baby mommas as Asian soap opera.

I wake up this morning, look at Twitter/X, and see Musk is involved some sordid depraved baby momma affair with Ashley St. Clair. This guy needs to live in a double-wide. He has the morals of a goat. As much as I do approve of what DOGE is uncovering, Musk is making it all very unseemly with his trashy behavior.

A lot of nonsense if not criminality is being uncovered. Million dollar salaries were going to two British politicians (through one's wife) and being paid by USAID. How does USAID need to give aid to British politicians. I also see that DNC vice chairman David Hogg has just been found to be pilfering money through a salary generated by a non-profit. Hogg may go to jail.

I like much that DOGE has uncovered and am happy to see cuts where needed. I do feel, however, that the deportment of Musk has been depraved and positively low brow. I'm ready to allow him to run his technical audit. But he has no business using that material to suggest government policies or advocate for bills, such as he and Vivek did for the continuing budget vote. The White House and the Oval Office doesn't need to be made into some nightmare version of Romper Room. Musk is good at figuring out how to get things into space and maybe make cars. His politics are poisonous however. That Trump can't see this is yet another indictment of Trump's poor people skills. Elon/Trump are leading us into a disaster in Ukraine that will resemble another China 1949 debacle, where Joe Stilwell so poisoned the US relationship with Chiang Kai-shek during World War II that he created an atmosphere that turned off support of Chiang after the war and made Mao's victory possible. Sometimes your allies are going to be corrupt. But it's better them winning than your enemies. I still think Trump wants to do a Nixon Goes To China gambit. And with Musk pushing in that direction, we just might get it. Catastrophe.

Where did he get the money for that lifestyle?

No, those were Bush lies. The Bushes and the Clintons should be in prison for their lies, leading to untold victims and trillions in wasted spending.

You're correct, but it's more fundamental than that. We have too many generals and admirals. Too many military golf courses and country clubs. Too few government contractors, because of mergers, and thus less competition in bidding for armaments. And of course the $650 toilet seats and $7500 coffee makers. Whatever the excuses, they still paid stupid sums of money for pedestrian items that can be got for a tenth or less of those prices.

Notice the Re in Reconquista. It's there because it was a Reconquest of Visigoth Christian lands taken by Muslim invaders.

Should have gone along well with the "condor cuisinart" windmills that chopped up all those birds in California.

A self-confessed murderer should already be under arrest, not merely banned or under investigation.

If the US says no, then Ukraine will not become a member. End of. Membership is by consensus. Each member country of nato has a veto on new members.

Kasparov lives in New York City, although he has Croatian citizenship. Why doesn't he go live in Europe if he doesn't "need the US at all?"

But these are benefits going to providers outside the country. Enrollees aren't the ones who get paid. So what I'm wondering is if this is money going to subcontracted outsourced labor, such as foreign diagnosticians who read x-rays and other tests in places such as India and then send it back to US hospitals.

Why not? Canada has already adopted the EU's let'em all come immigration policy.

If you fear being a target, move out of the target area. Leave those foreign ghettoes where so many Americans seem to reside. Plenty of nice places exist but they're not next to where expat condos, bars, and feed stores proliferate.

The Philippines is central. Without it, the US might as well retreat to Hawaii. Taiwan I'm not so sure about, because the opposition KMT wants a Hong Kong-style deal with China. I would hate to see a vast amount of advanced American weaponry given to the Taiwanese only for them to hand it over to the PRC.

Trump is going to fold on China. Is he now working a deal that will remove US naval forces from around China in return for a reduction in Chinese "coast guard" activity in the SCS? If he does, that means the Philippines will be lost to China accommodationists. Does he want to run up the white flag everywhere?

I can't figure out Nepal. Correct me if I'm wrong. But isn't it already ruled by a coalition of the Maoist-Marxists and Maoists Center Party?

Had the government not extended and eased visas for Chinese and Russians, would this even be a problem?

Simple to start. Prohibit any state or local funding from going to non-citizens. Meanwhile, proof of citizenship or a doubling of property taxes becomes mandatory.

And this is one of the reasons I don't trust Trump, despite the things I've seen DOGE undertake that I like. Trump folds too easily internationally. He did so with China in his first term. And now he's looking incredibly soft by taking up Russian positions on the war in Ukraine. I don't mind reducing US military aid to Ukraine. In fact, the US needs for the Europeans to make Ukraine their project, not America's. But the US needs to stand firm against Putin for no other reason than he is China's foremost ally. In reality, the US needs to focus on East Asia and China and redeploy as much as possible to the Philippines and Japan. The Euros have made clear that they'll not help us in the Pacific, with the Germans, French, and British already moving to accommodate China. So maintain sanctions on Russia and provide some minor material support to Ukraine until Russia loses. But the Europeans need to step up themselves.

After what China built in Cambodia? This? Why does Thailand need or seek the approval of a foreign leader to build a casino in their own country? Unless, of course, their country isn't really theirs.