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November 3rd Led to February 24th
The Russian attack on Ukraine can be traced to the 2020 presidential election. Leaving aside the question of voter fraud, the replacement of Trump by Biden strengthened Russia’s economy. One of the first actions Biden took was to cancel the Keystone pipeline. He also discouraged drilling. Gas and other fossil fuel prices jumped. Russia depends heavily on energy exports so this was a huge cash infusion into its economy.
Biden appointed incompetent people such as Austin who became secretary of defense. When he wasn’t chowing down, he appeared to think that his most crucial issue was to root out conservatives in the defense department. A friend of mine knew a young man who joined the Air Force to work on cyber defense. With the emphasis on transgenders getting surgeries, he’s getting out as soon as his enlistment ends.
Austin also thinks that forcing people who are not at risk from COVID to get a leaky vaccine is critical. When push came to shove in Afghanistan, no one stood up to Biden and said that we should hold Bagram Air Base until the very end. It’s much more secure than Kabul but none of our generals were willing to put their careers on the line on behalf of the safety of our military. And in the debacle we left tens of billions of dollars of weapons behind.
Biden was always a gaffe machine, but by Election Day 2020 he was clearly unfit to be president. He barely campaigned. In his few press conferences since he’s become president, he calls on specific reporters and has the answers written out on 3×5 cards. His recent performance shows a man who is almost comatose.
https://t.co/llgadKtta0
pic.twitter.com/NyNiQZk26O— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) April 28, 2022
Putin attacked Georgia when Bush was president. He then seized Crimea during Obama’s presidency. Now he’s attacking Ukraine. The only president he appears to have respected was Trump. The people who supported Biden are to blame for this debacle. And the escalation which is being pushed by Bill Kristol and other war hawks is dangerous. It’s good for Raytheon but no so good for Ukraine. We need to encourage de-escalation rather than ramping up the rhetoric.
Published in Foreign Policy
Nah, not with this one. Times have really changed. This is not about Russia and Ukraine. It’s about the globalists and the nationalists.
But I’m not arguing, just saying it out loud for anyone with an open mind to consider.
Okay. I’m in the sometimes a cigar is really a cigar camp. Big international secret-society string-pulling chess-masker machinations seem less likely than the usual mess that results from the terrible and familiar intersection of history, culture, opportunity, and personality, but maybe this time is different.
I don’t think you’re serious. “Secret-society”? I’m not talking about any secret society. That’s coming out of your own preconceptions and biases. They’re quite open about it, giving lectures and writing books.
The powerful think your butcher’s bill should be zero cuz you shouldn’t be eating meat anyway.
it’s hard enough to figure out one’s own interests, very difficult to figure out local, state and national interests, so its insane to begin with global interests which are unknowable, and not much better to move to national interests. We have always sort of figured national interests out when things were important enough to do so and it wasn’t easy. Think of the big wars, the civil war as well; The Cold War was figured out through time by a brilliant FSO and only took us a couple of decades . Foreign policy and international and national interests aren’t easy. The idea that a handful of self absorbed folks who haven’t really been engaged in the real world for long can guide a nation of 320 million of the most diverse richest folks in history is beyond belief, but that’s where we are. And we think we can just get rid of these folks with elections? And if not then what? Are we going to just let it end? In history how many countries or places recuperated and became strong again after settled centralization? Rome fought if off and on longer than any, but the end was the same and Italy is really a great place but that’s the most we can hope for but without a vibrant market economy leading the way into an unknown future, the Italy solution will follow many decades of starvation and chaos, and if luck absence of nuclear war. These folks don’t have a clue but they think they’re in charge.
I Walton for Dictator Of Everything.
I think that’s why I find it upsetting that it seems to me the simplest and most obvious thing is for all of those countries to be defensively armed and planned to the teeth 10 X Switzerland. All of the Ivy League ruling class propeller heads are going to MAYBE think of SOME useful things very secondary to that in efficacy.
Why in the hell are they cutting and welding caltrops and hedgehogs after the damn thing starts?
Fascinating chart. Thank you for reproducing it here.
The only thing I would say is that the relative populations of the countries listed need to be considered.
The civilized world is in a difficult position. If we push Putin so far that he uses tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine to retaliate in his anger against us, it won’t help Ukraine. In other words, he will take out his anger at us on the Ukrainians. It would be very typical of this kind of madman to do that, just to say, “It’s all your fault these people are suffering.”
Military spending during “peacetime” never seems very politically popular. Especially in countries where any money spent on defense is money that can’t be spent on “free” healthcare etc.
If we make a nuclear bomb and are never allowed to use it, what if we just say we made one?
The other sides seem to have ways of finding out.
Once again [REDACTED] rolls downhill.
Well then, we could do a good job of making one up, but just without the naughty bits.
Russia considers the loss of 25 million citizens in WWII to be a great victory. Here in Texas we consider the Alamo a great battle, despite that fact that it was a massacre. It is hard for outsiders to judge the cost and value of fighting. Money-wise, Russia’s national income has risen thanks to high energy and commodity prices, so there is that. Asymmetrical warfare is cheap. Both sides (Axis and Allies) can fund guerilla warfare forever. It really is amazingly inexpensive to fight with Molotov cocktails and rifles, when you have a large supply of people willing to kill and die. Enforcing peace is harder than allowing a civil war to fester. Look around the globe and you will see festering civil wars all over the place. In the long run we are seeing a emerging alignment of ascending countries fighting descending countries. Time is not on our side.
Like Doc Brown did for the Libyans?
Seems like we’d be safe if only so many of “us” weren’t apparently intent on descending.
It will take a lot of work. Look at it by generation:
* Boomers/Gen-X — are looking at Social Security trust fund going bust in 10 years
* Gen-Y/Gen-Z — leading cause of death is overdose; not having babies or owning stuff
* Gen-alpha — 25% are having a Queer identity crisis; debt/GDP ratio heading toward 200%
We are in a cold war with the Atlanticists/Marxists that run our country and institutions.
Might one say it is a pursuit of the Galtonian Eugenic vision of humanity as prize sheep on a well tended moot
Moot?
FTFY.
Plu$, of ¢our$e it a¢hieved $omething. Real neocons with multiple yachts depended on that war!
It’s been interesting watching people insist that there’s no such thing as the Great Reset, even if you wave the actual plan in front of their eyes.
Why would he do that, when he can just attack us directly?
When the bombs start falling on the U.S., at least I’ll be able to say “I told you so” as radiation takes my life. Cold comfort in that, at least.
With what they’re doing to drive up the price of food through shortages, they’re making sure we don’t.
They will keep eating steak, anyway.
We get bug paste.
Maybe.
Look up Russell Napier as well.
?
In very blue Seattle you can no longer get a permit to build a house with natural gas — all must be electric –much to the chagrin of cooks who prefer gas stoves. The world has gone crazy under Biden’s anti fossil fuel policies.
Because they think all-electric houses can be powered by solar panels and windmills. But they can’t.
My view: A coalition of Dem-aligned bigwigs and donors saw a Bernie Sanders candidacy as the most likely outcome of the gaggle of candidates struggling to emerge during the Democratic primaries, or at best a cantankerous convention (nobody does cantankerous better than Bernie!), and they foresaw Sanders would be demolished by Trump, riding high on his successful policies despite all the flak. So the deal was struck: coalesce behind Biden as the “moderate” consensus candidate while his campaign gave quiet assurances that his policies will reflect those of Sanders and his Sandernistas.
***1000%***
My brother-in-law is an ignorant PhD old time Democrat. All he cared about was getting Trump out of office. He literally had a Red Bernie sign on his lawn and he caucused for Biden just to get Trump out of office.
I can assure you he’s very thoughtless about the consequences of Bernie seizing power.
He literally told me he’s not going to discuss public policy with me anymore because he doesn’t know anything about it.
But people like that vote anyway. Sigh.