Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

I want Russia weakened for the same reasons I'd like to see MSU, PSU, and OSU's football programs weakened. I'm pretty sure Ukraine has said it will not pursue joining NATO and even if they did, tough shit (for Putin). They are an independent nation that can choose their own course without having a neighboring country waltz in and start blowing the place up. Putin views Ukraine as part of ancestral Russia and wants it back. It's just an old fashioned war for territory. I support the West's efforts to repel that nonsense and I don't even blink at the dollars involved because they are utterly insignificant relative the massive sums we're spending on garbage proposals in our own country.

We don't play Russia every year. If we don't do anything really stupid, we won't play against them for the rest of our lives. There is no US interest served in weakening Russia. We shouldn't be spending a dime on anything outside the US until we have secured our Southern border. It's not an insignificant amount that we are giving to the Ukraine. And the guy that we are propping up is a corrupt oligarch who nobody would be cheering for were he not being picked on by a bully.

[Hannibal]

Also In-N-Out Burger is highly overrated. As much as Whataburger.

Burger was okay. Fries were straight trash. Five Guys, Shake Shack, and Smashburger all easily superior IMO as far as fast food goes.

Fast food burgers are roughly all the same. Just a matter of personal preference, really.

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[iam416]

Here's the NC Supreme Court decision that led to the Moore Case

orders.php (nccourts.org)

It specifies clauses 10, 19, 14, and 12 of the NC State Constitution's Declaration of Rights. #10 is probably the most pertinent and most broad:

Sec. 10. Free elections.
All elections shall be free.

There's a lot of room for interpretation in that one sentence since I doubt 20 people in a room would all have the exact same definition of what a "free election" is.

That ain't gerrymandering. Or rather, that clause or some form of it, has been in the state constitution and all its iterations since 1776. Further, partisan gerrymandering has occured in NC for the bulk of its existence. And, yet, only almost 250 years later has the Supreme Court finally concluded that "free" means "districts drawn as we see fit."

The bottom line is this is very, very simply a question of who gets to draw districts -- the legislature or the Supreme Court. That's it. FULL. FUCKING. STOP. It ain't about the legislature violating some clear law. It's about who gets to draw districts. That's it.

IMO, the Supreme Court is going to side with the legislature and say that Court can't intervene unless the legislature is clearly violating some law and if "elections shall be free" was so fucking clear perhaps someone, somewhere in that god-forsaken shithole of a state might have saw fit not to gerrymander for the past 200+ years.

Now, if the Constitution said "districts shall be drawn fairly" -- now we're getting somewhere. It's vague, but it's something. The Court can weigh in on that. They can't draw the districts, but they can sure as hell weigh in on what is fair or not.

Free? GTFO.

[Hannibal]

Dr. Oz, energizing his base 🙄

41419f0266a45ef0.jpg

[crashcourse]

Kari Lake Blasts Katie Hobbs for Refusing to Debate (breitbart.com)

[Hannibal]

Truth

c9b43cb240c7bf48.png

[THE_WIZARD_]

I'd like to take those pedals and smack you upside with them...

[Hannibal]

It still blows my mind how stupid the Republican midterm campaign is. The boomer era shitheads that have been the leaders of the party for 20+ years are still in Washington Generals mode. McConnell can’t retire fast enough.

[klondike]

Hell, I used to ride those pedals bare foot. Snowflakes would melt.

[Jeff Buchanan]

We don't play Russia every year. If we don't do anything really stupid, we won't play against them for the rest of our lives. There is no US interest served in weakening Russia. We shouldn't be spending a dime on anything outside the US until we have secured our Southern border. It's not an insignificant amount that we are giving to the Ukraine. And the guy that we are propping up is a corrupt oligarch who nobody would be cheering for were he not being picked on by a bully.

We're not going to agree on the propriety of the US and it's allies funding a proxy Ukrainian force ostensibly fighting to prevent a shift in the world order by mitigating one of the prime advocates and facilitators of such a shift, Vladamir Putin. I don't think you see the global trend toward authoritarian, ultra-nationalist governments as a threat to democracy. I also think you believe that taking care of the undeniable trend toward the extreme liberal absurd in America as more important than fighting the battle in a distant place that furthers western strategic interests.

I can respect those viewpoints. However, I believe them to be isolationist, short sighted and overly focused on national issues. If the world order is significantly changed with nuclear armed authroitarians, at thier whim, dictating how the future unfolds going forward that will turn out badly for freedom loving peoples. Fixing the US boarder, US crime rates, the water in Jackson Mississippi or the homelss tent cities and shit on the sidewalks in Seattle and SF will become unimportant. These currently important national issues can easily become relegated to unimportance while the more important global issue of the survival of western democracies under siege by an axis of committed and nuclear armed authoritarian regimes becomes a reality.

It's a pay me a little now or pay me a lot later situation. It's also a situation that has great peril in kicking that can down the road until Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or all four of them acting together in various ways try to "play" us on a neutral field. My bet is that one or all of them will do that unless we provide a clear signal to them now to forget about trying to play a game any one of them alone or in concert with each other are going to lose.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Of note in the rapidly evvolving situation on the ground in Ukraine: ISW reports that as of yesterday afternoon Russian administrative operations in the Karkiv oblast are collapsing with Russian and collaborating Ukrainian administrators along with lower level employees such as teachers and school administrators are fleeing accros the boarder into Russia. Their analysis indicates that the word of Ukrainian military sucess in retaking the portions of the Karkiv oblast previously occupied by Russain forces has elevated insecuirity among certain people living there. Ukrainian psy-ops directed at collaborating or supportive civilian populations aligned with Putin's aims has reportedly contributed to this insecurity and the increasing need of these people who are either Russian sympathizers or collaborators to flee.

Not expectedly, the success of the Ukraian military operations in and around the Kharkive province has created similar condtions in the Kherson and Zaphoriza provinces in the SE. People are fleeing. One report states that despite the news focus on Ukrainian succcesses in the east, the Ukrainian forces in the south are also having thier own successes. Reports that the looting of motor cycles and Mopeds by Russian soldiers has increased suggests that, just in case of Ukraian military threats, they will have the means to flee to safer regions under Russian control or back across the Ukrain-Russian boarder using these modes of transportation to do that.

Meanwhile back in the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, the Russian diplomat who is also the press secretary of Vladimir Putin, continues to play the role of Baghdad Bob reemphasisng that everything regarding the special military operation in Ukraine is going as planed. Meanwhile, just like in Iraq as US forces drove to the outskirts of Baghdad in a matter of days, while Sadam's army was either getting killed or fleeing to save thier asses, Putin's army appears to be in similar straights. Remember this guy's comedy act?:

Bhagdad Bob.jpg

[Obi-Jon]

Putin continues to ‘properly align’ the Russian oil industry for the upcoming winter in both Europe and Ukraine.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/13/business/ivan-pechorin-death-russia-intl/index.html

[iam416]

We have Baghdad Bob telling Russians it's going great.

We also have Baghdad Biden telling use all that inflation is zero and if it isn't the Inflation "Reduction" Act will surely cure it all.

With respect to the former, fortunately he can't speak that into existence. With respect to the latter, unfortunately, he can't speak that into existence.

The worst thing for both is that they can't hide it. They can't use their Media allies to tell us something different. The Russians know shit ain't right because they ain't conquered Ukraine yet. That's not hard to figure. And you can't bullshit folks on inflation, either.

[Tom W]

And you can't bullshit folks on inflation, either.

Oh but you CAN.. All you need to do is tell them, repeatedly, that the only alternative is racism, climate disaster, paying off loans and making their teenager daughters resort to DIY abortions.