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@cristo71
Yeah, I was waiting to see if they could do better than tearing up a speech. Still waiting.
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@Double_R
There's no alternative, Democrats stand for nothing. If they ditch Trump, they will just go to another Republican.
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@Double_R
Democrats aren't responsible for this political climate, so if you actually care about this point your ire at those who are responsible.
Lol, keep sitting on your ass then and enjoy the 20% approval polls. That will surely pave a way for a bright return to power.
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Join em!
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that he is open to cooperating with the US on rare-earth minerals in a video that has gone viral. This comes after President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s heated exchange at the Oval Office. In the video, Putin says he is willing to work with American partners – including private companies – in the rare-earth sector, and points out that Russia’s rare earth reserves are far greater than what Ukraine holds.
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@cristo71
I was thinking about the famous line watching the Democrats..."if you refuse to stand for anything, you will fall for everything..."
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In 2020-2021,
SBA.gov issued 3,095 loans, including PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) and EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan), for $333M to borrowers over 115 years old who were still marked as alive in the Social Security database. In one case, a 157 years old individual received $36k in loans.
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With the track record of PPP oversight, you can't trust that SSI is anywhere near free of fraud and waste.
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@Shila
They can also decide who oversees that spending.
Yeah, Congress has the authority to flex its muscles and remove those provisions, but many will see it as Congress not caring enough about fraud or waste, and given their track record (returning only 1.5 billion out of hundreds of billions of PPP waste uncovered). It's likely members on the oversight committee will be removed by the electorate when the Congress takes responsibility and the blame for failing to fix the problems.
Zero Democrats in Congress stood up and clapped for any of the fraud and waste funds recovered, but a majority of Americans at home were definitely clapping. That will frame the Democrat Congress as being "pro fraud and waste" since they can't even pretend to get behind those small victories. When they are already polling at 20%, that's not a good look.
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@fauxlaw
Congressional oversight committees do recover fraud and waste, but rarely with any efficiency, and certainly not as often as they claim. They frequently uncover waste, but enforcement and remedies are slow. Committees like the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee (GAO) investigate fraud, but their findings often take years to result in actual policy changes or recoveries. The Government Accountability Office plays a role in tracking waste and fraud, sometimes leading to billions in recoveries, particularly in areas like Medicare fraud and defense contract overbilling. In some cases, they can't even identify the scope of the fraud because institutions like the Pentagon cannot even pass an audit! (where's the money? We don't know!)
Most government agencies typically resist giving back any appropriated money, so Congress often has to go through the slow torture of passing new laws to prevent future fraud instead of simply recovering the lost funds immediately. Some high-profile hearings, such as those on Pentagon spending fraud or COVID relief fraud, have identified massive waste, but only a fraction of the funds actually get recovered. The Paycheck Protection Program, for example, saw hundreds of billions in fraud, yet recoveries have been slow despite congressional investigations. Out of those 100 billions identified as fraud and waste, only 1.5 billion was clawed back to the government, and none of that was returned to the taxpayer. If fraudsters were forced to return money quickly, government oversight would be far more effective, but in reality, bureaucracy, politics, and legal delays make the process much slower. While congressional oversight does help, it is far less effective than it could be. This is why Congress typically allows the executive branch to make discretion decisions on many expenditures, knowing that Congressional oversight is a Sisyphean task.
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When I see trump spit at Zelensky but defends woman's sports all I see is the end of metanarratives and traditional political structures which used to dominate and the rise of increasingly feminized politics which is only concerned with the social functions of people.
As far as the neocon metanarrative decline goes:
The new population being woven into the country through mass migration both legal and illegal doesn’t have the same historical or cultural attachments to things like Manifest Destiny, Cold War rivalries, or American exceptionalism. Those were deeply ingrained in older WASP generations, particularly those with ties to early settlers, the frontier spirit, and the ideological battles of the 20th century.
If you’re someone who just arrived in the last 10–20 years—especially from places with no historical stake in U.S.-Russia conflicts, you’re not going to care about weakening Russia or “defending democracy abroad.” That’s not your fight. Your concerns are more immediate: jobs, housing, navigating a new administrative system, and securing a future for your family.
Meanwhile, the people whose ancestors did believe in these metanarratives are feeling alienated because they see their culture and historical worldview being sidelined. That’s why many Americans today are checking out of global politics entirely, it doesn’t feel relevant to the country they now live in.
I don't know much about your take on women's sports, but I really don't see allowing chicks with dicks into a woman's locker room as a "neocon" fight. Plenty of neocons were okay with using the might of the male to protect a biologically inferior (physically) female.
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@Dr.Franklin
Losing protestant culture was inevitable after so many years of importing illegal slave wage labor and allowing them to stay. It wasn't sustainable in 1860 or 2025.
A lot of the anti-woke didn't come from WASPs...it came from the people that switched sides. Being white and rich enough to care about dictator vs dictator wars, how to pronounce Latinx, and how to free the conventions on naming your gender are things only a WASP could afford to place high value on. It’s easier to debate pronouns and obscure global conflicts when you’re not worried about rent, gas prices, or whether your kid’s school is actually teaching math.
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@zedvictor4
The other alternative is, Trump dies soon.
Let us hope, so we can get started early on the JD Vance dynasty. Maga squared.
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@Sidewalker
Canada is a red and white hat.
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@Owen_T
The press also had a lot of credibility at the time of the Dean scream. Only a small percentage of people trust corporate news enough to waste their time with them, and that percentage is dropping. It's not Trump's fault the news became so hyperbolic that it became boring to people actually wanting to know what was happening in the world. Even Jerry Springer levels of hyperbole had an expiration date. There's a limit to how many times you can say "worst crisis ever" before it becomes repetitive and meaningless.
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@Shila
That Trump didn't do anything to help people is fake news.
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@Mharman
It's just an economic zone. They won't care about being American, they barely care about what it means to be Canadian.
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@cristo71
I suppose, like Trump and Zelensky, If you cannot agree on something as simple and basic as a cease fire, than why even discuss reconstruction terms?
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Massachusetts has had universal HC for 20 years, and no state has copied it.
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@cristo71
Lawsuits are the ultimate weapon vs woke culture. When you are held accountable for due diligence, you cannot afford to pick the worst.
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@cristo71
On a related note, I heard that near-miss (George Carlin would have called it a near-hit, but I digress) statistics reached an all time high under DEI initiatives the past 4 years where inexperienced pilots were thrust into the workforce to fill quotas. I recall this being reported when discussing the upside down Delta jet.
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@cristo71
so the motive and procedural basis behind the DOT disapproval is obscure and esoteric and not easily examined by the layperson. But Trump tweeted about it, so it must be wrong.
Well, that is just a shortcoming inherent with many on the left: not being able to realize that they really do not know what the intent is. It's not exactly "Hochul-woman-bad, therefore, deny tolls." There are likely many other reasons as well. Probably, some of the reasons have to do with the ongoing power struggle between Hochul and Adams. Some of it simply is that Trump knows it's unpopular. Some of the reasons, Trump feels it is just plain wrong. Could be a lot of things.
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@cristo71
And I provided a definition which refuted your explanation.
As Devil's advocate: technically, choices and options nullify the standard for price gouging. For example, if somebody charged you 20 dollars for a gallon of gas, but you could get it cheaper a few miles away, it doesn't meet the standard for gouging. If you are the only station within 100 miles, that would probably meet the standard due to lack of realistic choices. The position of New York is that there is a choice, you can use the subway, or we can charge whatever we want for use of the roads. That's your choice. Now, maybe a court will look at this and declare a subway option to be separate, but NOT equal to a highway choice. Who knows?
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@Mharman
Thin people make me impatient.
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@n8nrgim
We can define a failing state as one that loses bond credit rating due to economic malfeasance and incompetence.
As of August 2023, states like Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, and Minnesota hold better Fitch Ratings than the federal government's AA+ bond rating.
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@zedvictor4
Wrong again. I don't like either of them, and you can shove your pretty yellow and blue flag where it fits.
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@Lemming
Well Putin was wrong. It was definitely an ethnic cleansing and not strictly a "genocide"
He most likely exaggerated for political purposes, but the intent to forcibly remove or suppress a population based on their ethnicity, language, or cultural identity fits the very definition of ethnic cleansing. The world saw it in the Balkans in the 1990s, and something similar played out in Donbas, even if Western media refused to frame it that way with their war propaganda. It's wrong to do it in Gaza and it is wrong to do it in the Donbas.
In any case, I will never be on the side of ethnic cleansing, and I don't care how cute the blue and yellow flag looks. I really do not.
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@Lemming
I get you don't like it, but to claim the conflict in Donbas has nothing to do about the forcible removal of ethnic Russians in the Donbas misses the very core of the conflict over there. It's not at all "good guy vs bad guy"
To ignore the concerns of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Donbas, or to frame them all as “Russian puppets,” is to overlook the very heart of the conflict. It wasn’t just about geopolitics, it was about identity, survival, and the fear of being forcibly assimilated or displaced by a government they did not recognize as legitimate. They literally outlawed their language and killed thousands of them.
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@Lemming
Maybe the guy shouldn't have fled the country.
Umm...when there's an armed mob outside your door staging a coup, there's not many sane choices. Saying it's Russian "propaganda" doesn't actually make them less violent.
By mid-February 2014, the situation in Kyiv had escalated into outright street warfare between protesters and security forces. On February 18–20, violent clashes erupted as protesters, armed with Molotov cocktails, bats, and even some firearms, fought against the Berkut riot police, who responded with live ammunition and sniper fire. Over 100 protesters and 13 police officers were killed in the chaos. Demonstrators seized government buildings, torched police headquarters, and fortified their occupation of Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti).
On February 21, under extreme pressure, President Viktor Yanukovych signed an EU-brokered deal to hold early elections and restore the 2004 constitution, which would limit presidential power. However, the protesters rejected the agreement, demanding his immediate resignation. The following day, February 22, radical factions and paramilitary groups, including the nationalist Right Sector, stormed government buildings and occupied the presidential palace. Yanukovych fled overnight after his security detail warned him they could no longer protect him. In his absence, the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) voted to remove him from office, though they lacked the required three-fourths majority for formal impeachment.
By February 23–24, the new government had issued arrest warrants for Yanukovych and his ministers, accusing them of mass murder. Meanwhile, pro-Russian demonstrations erupted in Crimea and Donbas, setting the stage for the coming conflict. While the new Ukrainian government maintained that Yanukovych’s removal followed legal procedures, the reality was that an armed insurrection in the streets had driven him from power. Parliament did not follow the proper impeachment process, and the president fled under duress, not by choice. With radical groups seizing control of key institutions, the events of February 2014 clearly amounted to a violent regime change.
Whether one supports it or not, calling it a purely peaceful democratic uprising and not a coup is historically inaccurate.
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@Lemming
The Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) voted 328–0 to remove him, but the constitutional requirement for impeachment (three-fourths majority, or 338 votes) was not fully met. Hence, it was an illegal removal of an elected president. The entire world describes it as a coup.
Many of the separatist attempters happened to be ethnically Russian,Ukraine fighting them does not make it ethnic cleansing.
Oh!... just like the majority of people Hitler killed just happened to be ethnic Jews, and the people Trump excluded just happened to be ethnic Muslims. That's some badass mental gymnastics my friend.
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@Lemming
Ethnically cleansing Russians from the Donbas was never about "self-defense" any more than it was self-defense for Hitler to cleanse the Jews.
The more you actually study and learn what is really going on there past the war propaganda, the more sickening it is to see who the real monsters were.
I am sure there were many Hitler fans before the mass graves were uncovered.
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@Lemming
Yeah...much much later on after they had already been fighting for almost a decade in a bloody civil war, mainly targeting ethnic cleansing of Russians.
Timeline: From Maidan Revolution to Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine:
2013–2014: The Maidan Revolution & Fall of Yanukovych
- November 21, 2013 – Protests begin in Kyiv after President Viktor Yanukovych rejects an EU trade deal in favor of closer ties with Russia.
- February 18–20, 2014 – The Euromaidan protests turn violent, with police cracking down on demonstrators. Over 100 people are killed.
- February 22, 2014 – Yanukovych is undemocratically ousted and flees to Russia, and a new pro-Western government takes power. Russia calls this a Western-backed coup.
2014: Donbas War Begins
- April 6–12, 2014 – Pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk seize government buildings, declaring the creation of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR).
- April 15, 2014 – The new Ukrainian government launches an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO) and wages a cleansing war against ethnic Russian separatists in Donbas.
- May 11, 2014 – DPR and LPR hold referendums, claiming independence from Ukraine in an effort to stop the mass scale slaughter of ethnic Russians in the Donbas. Kyiv and the West call the referendums "illegal democracy."
- July–August 2014 – Ukrainian forces push deep into Donbas but suffer heavy defeats at Ilovaisk from the ethnic Russian separatists.
2015–2021: Stalemate in Donbas
- February 12, 2015 – The Minsk II agreement is signed, calling for a ceasefire and autonomy for Donbas. Fighting slows but never fully stops.
- 2016–2021 – Kiev takes time during the ceasefire to gather support from the west and then violates the cease fire by continuing low-level warfare along the front line, with thousands of casualties.
- April 2019 – Volodymyr Zelenskyy is elected President of Ukraine, pledging peace but taking a firm stance against ethnic Russians in the Donbas.
- 2021 – Ukraine moves to increase ties with NATO, threatening the security of Russia and the ethnic Russians in the Donbas.
2022: Russia Invades Ukraine
- February 21, 2022 – Russia formally recognizes the DPR and LPR as independent states.
- February 24, 2022 – Russia launches a full-scale invasion, under the justification of rescuing ethnic Russians in the Donbas from Ukrainian aggression.
This marks the transition from the civil war phase (2014–2021) to an outright interstate war between Russia and Ukraine.
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@Lemming
That Civil War. It was never about "Self-Defense"
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@Best.Korea
More than half of all the deaths in Ukraine are from artillery.
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@Lemming
More broadly, Ukraine is practicing self defense, I'd say.
Ukraine started a civil war in 2014, that is the opposite of "self-defense"
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@Lemming
Which Japanese deaths in particular?
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, those were necessary deaths, no?
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@zedvictor4
Apparently the zelensky cock has lost all the flavor.
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@zedvictor4
Let down all your allies of the past 75 years or so
Russia was an ally 75 Years ago. England was against USA up until the Great War. Allies can change. Nations don't need to engage in suicide pacts.
As Wylted said, with all the fascism coming out of Germany and the undemocracy in Ukraine, we are actually closer now to Russia than any of those countries.
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@Lemming
“There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.”
Yes, and Ukraine should definitely postpone this one and sign a cease fire. Absolutely.
There are degrees to losing a war. Some degrees are unrecoverable.
I 'do think Europe could do more itself.
Yes, and this is how the peace will last. When the European appeasement ends.
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@zedvictor4
Probably Russia again, lol.
At least the Ukrainians are sticking in there
Sticking in the ground maybe. Or perhaps they have to wait for the spring thaw to count the bodies.
Well I guess Russia is laughing about the stupidity of it all just like America laughed at all the dead Japanese in WW2 when they refused to surrender.
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@Lemming
And how did all those Czech children dying change anything?
Many losing wars ended up with needless slaughter. Knowing when to surrender is the highest thought process.
Did all those needless Japanese deaths matter in WW2?
Ukraine just needs to wait for now, sign a cease fire, and hope for Europe to stop appeasing Russia and start funding a military.
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@Lemming
I view it as for their sake as well,
Again, I am not so callous as to order Ukrainians to lose their children just so I can feel better about myself.
Especially not when the end to the killing is a very achievable thing.
Better war, than some forms of peace.
That's very easy to say when your kids are not the ones dying.
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@Lemming
Better that Ukrainians continue to fight..
I am not nearly as callous about the loss of human life. Ukrainians don't deserve to die just so Americans can live.
Especially when America has the full power to end the dying.
Ukraine and Russia ceasefire, that Russia soon breaks after?
It's better to try than to give up on peace.
I do not view Trump as a trustworthy person, nor would Ukrainians I'd think.
That's a valid point, and if they really believe this, then Ukraine is free to cut ties with America.
I think appeasement is a bad strategy, both because I do not think Russia actions would change, and I think it will encourage other aggressive nations.
That only applies if Europe continues to appease Russia by not investing in the European military. You and I both do not know if Europe will continue this appeasement.
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@Lemming
I like holding to one's word, and politeness.
Zelensky has been politely saying for 3 years that he could retake the Donbas.
He knows it is a lie, and I really don't care about the politeness of liars.
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@Lemming
Fair enough, I wouldn't expect you to know just how poor Putin's popularity was before the war or how bad the Russian economy was before the war.
But if the goal was to drag out the war long enough so that Putin becomes unpopular or to "Bleed" Russia, we are nowhere near that point, and that is going to mean a LOT more dying and a lot more money thrown away. Maybe as long as 10 years.
If the goal is peace, then we can make a deal today.
Security assurance costs can be offset with mineral rights. A win/win for everyone.
Better for America to hold Russia back, and try to break it apart, than let it gain momentum. I'd think.
That is a completely different goal with a much higher price tag.
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So yes, he was Hunter Bidened out of his mind on that parmesan cheese.
It all makes sense why Zelensky did not want peace. He wanted the high.
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@badger
Honest question, Do you think Zelensky in that meeting was high on Cocaine in order to deal with Trump's Bullshit?
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@Lemming
I would think it is in America's interest for Russia to be made weaker, rather than let them absorb Ukraine and become stronger?
Honest question, what do you think A) Russia's economic situation is right now compared to 3 years ago and B) Putin's popularity within Russia compared to 3 years ago?
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@zedvictor4
Churchill was a better god. He wouldn't let a little pug tell England what to do.
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