Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

CGVT is here sooner than I figured today...thought maybe he'd be busy playing on his new Threads app...

[Dr. Strangelove]

Not sure that could be Wiz's sign. No spelling mistakes and it's far, far too clean.

[Dr. Strangelove]

President Dumdum says the cocaine is obviously Joe's and Joe was "probably" doing cocaine when he ordered the very illegal invasion of Mar a Lago.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Not sure that could be Wiz's sign. No spelling mistakes and it's far, far too clean.

Seconded.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Switching away from the idiocy of American politics for a moment and toward the NATO summit in Vilnius Lithuania that will start tomorrow and will be attended by our doddering idiot president. The Zelenski government in Ukraine want's some kind of signal that Ukraine will have a path to NATO membership after the war ends. Zelenski will get something but not as reassuring as he'd prefer. The US position on Ukraine's membership in NATO is a resounding no; not yet nor anytime soon it would appear. Zelenski said late last week that without a clear pathway to NATO membership, Ukraine would reassess looking for other structural options for security guarantees outside of NATO. A model could be similar to US security guarantees to Israel.

Obviously, Russia has legitimate security concerns about an eastward expansion of NATO especially as it relates to Ukraine. It is unclear to me whether the prospect of a Russian military operation is behind the hesitancy to unanimously support NATO membership among the wester alliances. However, Putin is largely to blame for the west's military and political support to Ukraine along with Finland's and Sweden's requests to join NATO. There is no basis for Putin's claim that Ukraine was about to attack Russia and Russia's special military operation was and continues to be a preemptive operation to prevent westernization and democratization of former Soviet Satellite states. BTW, that's a revised goal after the initial goal of toppling the "Nazi regime" in Kiev failed. Putin spokes person Peskov warned the western alliance against taking Ukraine into it's orbit and granting NATO membership. He said Russia views that negatively and it would require an appropriate response from Russia. The strategic implication is that we are entering a period of a cold war involving multiple global great powers defined by their individual possession of nuclear weapons - a return to great power tensions that existed before the start of WWI.

Reports emerged this morning that Prigozhen and Putin met for 3h on June 29th, 4d after Wagner's mutiny, inside the Kremlin. No details of that meeting have been reported. What it signals is that Prigozhen still has some leverage and that Putin sees private military corps as an adjunct - something he needs to continue fighting there - to Russian ground forces in Ukraine. Wagner PMC is active in many other parts of the globe in particular in Syria and the Central African Republic. These are useful military extensions of Putin's FP and is a part of the leverage Prigozhen wields with Putin. While the military situation in Ukraine seems to be drifting towards a stalemate with neither Russia or Ukraine able to make substantial territorial gains, the political situation is about as clear as mud. My take is that there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. There always is once the shooting starts. Erdogan's release of Azovstol commanders to Ukraine and just lately his announcement that he wants Turkey's accession to the EU expedited if it is expected for Erdogan to approve Sweden's entry into NATO. That's just a glimpse of the horse trading going on out of the public eye. There certainly is way more of that.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Jeff, Stoltenberg just announced that Turkey and Sweden have reached a deal that'll get Sweden admitted to NATO.

Dunno what Erdogan's up to recently but he really seems to be pivoting away from Putin.

[crashcourse]

Coke found in a cubby hole in the west wing in a heavily trafficated area still means it was staff or somebody with credentials high enough to be let in that area.

but much like epsteins visitors to his jail or too his island unless they pay off somebody to take the fall we will never find out. If its anybody important I doubt we ever find out

Kind of stupid for Joe to be justifying the cluster bombs by explaining we're running low on ammunition

Joe has got to go. He really looked like a coked out burnout inspecting troops with charles today.

had that look wiz has whenever the big 10 season is approaching mid November and no 6-6 record to be had

[THE_WIZARD_]

sutf

[crashcourse]

we really live in 1 effed up world

‘Post-Truth World’: Man Wins Miss Netherlands, Sparking Outrage On Twitter | The Daily Wire

[iam416]

Strangelove was thrilled. Already has a poster of him on his wall.

[THE_WIZARD_]

What Progs want...FB_IMG_1689020233742.jpg

[AlabamAlum]

Coke found in a cubby hole in the west wing in a heavily trafficated area still means it was staff or somebody with credentials high enough to be let in that area.

No. The area where you stow your electronics in cubbyholes is for lower level staffers at the White House. Anyone with a top secret White House Security Clearance (directors and cabinet members and the like) are allowed to keep their phones on their person. My guess is one of the staff attorneys from the White House Counsel. High enough salary to afford a baggie of coke but not a high enough level to forgo checking their personal phone, and lawyers are well known powder enthusiasts.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[Jeff Buchanan]

This video is incredibly moving. It should be seen by both pro and antiwar advocates.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/i...smid=url-share

[Dr. Strangelove]