Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Tom W]

Everything is Trump's fault. He knows what happened to Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart. He was on the grassy knoll. He was golf buddies with Pontious Pilate and kicked the rock that knocked out the dinosaurs.

[THE_WIZARD_]

fuckin' Mango Man

[Jeff Buchanan]

Putin is suggesting Russia should nationalize the capital assets - structures, equipment, on-hand stocks - of Western companies exiting Russia and let Russian people who want to work run them. The response from several Russian businessmen, "this will set Russia's economy back 100 years."

Well, chinks in Putin's support that I doubt will amount to much. Putin isn't crazy but he is irrationally deluded. Some economists are arguing that the medicine may be worse than the illness. The costs to the global economy may not be worth the sanctions if Russia, as Putin declares it will, weather them.

This kind of talk reminds me of the early days of the pandemic when public health experts were describing the end times are near. The west, and most parts of economically stable Asia, are in a 100x better position to weather this shit-storm than fucking Putin is.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Heels Up Giggles Harris a disaster in Poland. Why didn't they just send Hunter? He's the smartest guy Chairman Poopypants knows...he's said that...he's used to brokering big deals with eastern European countries...Giggles was just a show piece and she was a fucking clueless disaster...good fucking lord...

[lineygoblue]

Too bad we don't have good VP's like Fritz Mondale and Hubert Humphrey. Giggles doesn't belong in the same sentence with men like that.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Giggles doesn't even belong in same sentence as Dan Quayle. She is an abomination selected solely due to her skin color and vagina.

[Mike]

You could randomly select someone out of the phone book to serve as VP and there would be no drop off. Fucking embarrassing. I know the Poles and Ukrainians can’t speak up about it but I’d love for someone over there to say “Please send us a serious person next time”.

[Mike]

Jeff, I’m seeing new reports that Biden personally nixed the MiGs to Ukraine deal. There’s a WSJ article in my feed that is paywalled that suggests he backed down in light of Putin’s protestations. If you have access, I’d love a synopsis.

When I heard Blinken speak on Sunday, it sounded pretty solid that it was happening. Then Poland announced the plan and we backtracked, saying there was miscommunication. It’s starting to sound an awful lot like it was green-lighted and then Biden got cold feet at the last minute because of threats from Putin.

Our country is being run by children.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Fucking disgrace.

[foxhopper]

Biden/Harris just released a statement saying if we all quit driving for 2 weeks it will flatten the curve and things will go back to normal.

[Obi-Jon]

Poland made the offer to send the MiGs to Ramstein (US custody) for shipment to Ukraine, so that it be the US (big boy on the block) that actually made the xfer (not Poland who could be subject to airstrikes). They presumed the US would say yes.

We chickened out. Didn't want to escalate. So the intentional shelling of civilians is not an escalation? Play Putrid's game - we ARE sending aircraft to Ukraine unless the civilian shelling stops - you're committing a war crime. YOU are escalating, here's the response. Russia needs to be dealt with showing an iron gauntlet, not cotton gloves.


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[lineygoblue]

Biden/Harris just released a statement saying if we all quit driving for 2 weeks it will flatten the curve and things will go back to normal.

Where do we pick up the masks for our cars? Mine will be a small .. for a Honda Accord.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Mike, on the MIGs, Jon has responded, the Politico article you may not have seen up thread gives a good analysis of how this all went down. It is correct to say that Biden "nixed" the deal but there were a lot of people in DOD, NSC and CIA that argued that the MIGs would provide a marginal gain for Ukraine given the risks of Putin expanding military operations beyond Ukraine.

Frankly, at this point, I wonder if a full-out NATO engagement of Russian forces in Ukraine wouldn't stop the inevitable fall of Kiev. This is how I'd approach it. Next sitting of negotiators, NATO sends it's secretary and tells the Russians here's how this is going to go. Russia will cease all military operations and declare a cease fire or NATO will subdue Russian military forces there. The trip wire is breaking the cease fire. NATO has to start staging in the neighborhood of 100K ground forces on it's Eastern Flank as a show of force, and be prepared to engage Russian ground forces if it comes to that. Stage one is an air operation which IMO could be won at low cost. Putin's subtle threats of a nuclear, chemical or biological attack is certainly more than enough to tell him to go fuck himself.

NATO can build a case for Russian war crimes, threats of economic warfare in response to western sanctions and the Russian threat of unconventional warfare as the casus belli. I'm tired of dicking around with Putin. Good chance Putin forces get trounced in Ukraine in any level of engagement - be nice if the air war did the job - and he backs down.

[lineygoblue]

The only problem I have with that is 100,000 NATO troops likely equals 95,000 US troops, and the US gets strapped once again with bailing out Europe.

When does Europe bail out Europe?

[Mike]

It definitely needs to be a Europe/NATO operation, if one actually happens. I have no problem with supporting that operation with air support and weapons but if there are boots on the ground, it needs to be overwhelmingly European nations doing the heavy lifting.