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@ADreamOfLiberty
This is all strengthening his chances, they must know this.
his chances of winning the primary? definitely. His chances of winning the election? no. He's screwed. Crazy right wing loons love this stuff. Normal people are sick of his bullshit. This only hurts him independents and moderate republicans.
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@n8nrgim
trump's intent and knowledge are at the heart of this.
no, not really. It's like if you thought your wife was cheating on you, so you murdered her. Knowing why you did it would help with a conviction since you could show motive. But ultimately, you don't need to know why they did it. You just need to show that they did it.
If trump tried to stop people's votes from being counted, then he's guilty (of one of the charges). It doesn't matter why he did it. The why just makes it easier for a jury to understand what he was doing.
If trump tried to convince Pence not to certify the results of the election, he is guilty. It doesn't matter why he did it.
His knowledge and intent are certainly important for painting a picture for the jury. But even without knowing those things, they could still convict him.
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@TWS1405_2
There are NO formal debates within the forum section, just open discussions. So just knock it off with the asinine debunked "this is a debate website," "why are you here" garbage.
so you're lazy and can't or wont make any actual arguments. You expect me to go and watch idiots spew nonsense for hours on end so I can try and guess what your point is so that I can debunk it. You will then move the goal posts or just repeat nonsense at me and I will have wasted my time. I will pass. make an argument like a big boy or I will just assume you are incapable of doing so.
I've given my opinion, you - like Double_R - refuse to acknowledge it or just lack reading comprehension skills to understand an opinion when it is given vs other info given.
you haven't given your opinion. You have refused to do so. All you've done is try to make me watch right wing grifters. But that isn't your opinion. That is the opinion of someone who is paid to lie to you.
Thank you for your unsubstantiated subjective emotively driven opinion.
lol, so I actually explain how the law works and it's "unsubstantiated subjective emotively driven opinion". but when shapiro gets paid millions to lie to you, that is gospel? you are just sad.
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@TWS1405_2
I don’t need to make an argument as there is no argument to make when it has already been made for me in literal detail via the legal analysis given by Shapiro. One in which, given my own legal background, I could not find fault with.
then why are you here? This is a debate website. you obviously either have no opinion of your own or lack the capacity to argue it. If you just want to give links to other people's opinions then you might be more at home on some right wing echo chamber.
Using statutes that were designed for things other than what Smith twisted and stretched like a Mr Stretch Armstrong stretch doll into some superfluous verbose legal theories ≠ an actual crime with clearly outlined criteria to be established in order to prove that the defined alleged crime actually occurred.
ok, that is at least part of an argument. What about those statutes is not supposed to be used this way?
More than that, much of the garbage is pinned to what Trump did or did not know and knowingly knew or didn’t know and did or said it (1A) anyway. Unless Smith is a psychic or has Trump’s brain activities on video…no one can prove such a case. It’s purely a political indictment, not a legal one.
1) none of these charges have anything to do with the 1st amendment. You are allowed to say you think the election was rigged. You are not allowed to take steps to overthrow the election. That is what he is charged with.
2) trump spoke with many, many people about the crimes in question. If he ever said that some of the things he was claiming weren't true, then that would show his "brain activities". And reportedly they have at least one conversation from him where he called some of these arguments crazy, but then went on to make them anyway.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Your opinion about differences is irrelevant if you cannot point to relevant differences.
lol i explicitly described the differences. In hawaii they had different counts. One where the republicans won and one where the democrats won. There were ongoing lawsuits to get an official recount to sort this out. In 2020 there was nothing similar to this. There was no evidence of fraud and no cause to believe that the outcome would change. The two situations have little in common, other than the republicans exploiting the case in Hawaii to try to cover their attempted overthrow of democracy.
Facts trump "legal facts", and "legal facts" trump your false assumptions about the conclusion of unrelated courts.
this doesn't even make sense. The courts offered trump and a variety of right wing loons lots of chances to provide evidence of fraud. Not one shred of evidence could be provided. Those are the facts.
Yes there was.
no, there was rumors and baseless assertions. Every time a court looked at any example they brought up, there was no actual evidence to be had.
I see him list off random names and addresses. I flipped through trying to find where he was getting this from but couldn't find him say it anywhere. So i'm just going to assume he is making it up.
And here is the thing about this "evidence". If it was actually evidence, Trump and his allies would be screaming it from the rooftop. They would be showing it in court to prove his allegations are true. The fact that they don't do this, seems pretty definitive that it's bullshit. you can say this stuff on youtube and make lots of money off of idiots. You say this to a judge and can't back it up, and you go to jail. That is why every lawsuit got thrown out for having no evidence, even by trump appointed judges.
Time and again I get into the weeds, I go through basic statistical projection, and in the end the fraud denier just falls back on "well it doesn't add up to X needed to change the outcome"
are you expecting me to go through their "research" line by line and disprove it? There is a place where they would go to show off their "evidence". It's called a court. But none of this "evidence" had ever been put before a judge. Why is that?
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@TWS1405_2
I am not a transcriber, I don’t provide cliff notes either. You can listen for yourself just like everyone else does and will do. Shapiro. Levin. They all come to the same legal conclusion.
right wing idiots all come to the same conclusion!! my god, why didn't you say so!!
I am not a transcriber, I don’t provide cliff notes either.
no one has asked you to transcribe or provide cliff notes. I have asked you to make an argument, on you own, like a big boy. If you are incapable of doing that, then I will assume you have nothing but what some idiot said in a youtube video. If that is the case, there is no reason to discuss anything with you.
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@sadolite
Innocent until proven guilty I hear people say in the legal world.
the courts must assume he is innocent until he is proven guilty. Since we have access to an audio recording where he admits to having classified document that he wasn't allowed to have, we don't really need to wait. We've heard him confess.
Accusations about Biden. Is he guilty too?
lol, for trump there is a mountain of evidence including audio recordings of him admitting it. For biden, there is literally nothing. Some guy made a statement years ago and never provided a shred of evidence to back up his claim. And the guy that made the claim, was himself guilty of many of the crimes he said biden had done. The two situations aren't even comparable.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
The alternate slate of electors filled out the paperwork and sent it to congress before the litigation came to a conclusion. Are you claiming that was illegal?
I'm saying the two cases are extremely different and the comparison is weak.
So whether it is illegal or not depends on your false assumptions about what is baseless?
It isn't an assumption. There were numerous legal cases and every single one of them found the assumptions to be baseless. It is a legal fact that their claims were baseless.
They were no more fake than the democrat electors from Hawaii.
not true. Because in Hawaii the count showed the democrats had one. No such thing happened in 2020. There was absolutely no evidence of fraud.
With an phony election system I feel justified in armed counterattacks against anyone who dares to cloak themselves in the US constitution until such time as democracy is restored.
let me get this straight. All available evidence says biden won the election fairly, but you feel justified in using violence in overturning that because you have no evidence of fraud....
If Trump had tried to stay in office without a true election that would be exactly as treasonous
you are literally describing what trump did. He lost an election, then tried to coerce the states to send fake electors that would say he won when he had no evidence of any fraud. He did try to stay in office after losing a true election.
There is both evidence of fraud
what evidence. there were tons of court cases. tons of investigations. No one has provided any evidence of fraud. And by
If the so called election was conducted in the same manner and I saw the same evidence of fraud then I would not say Trump won because that would be impossible to know.
all elections are run the same way. So you are saying trump didn't win in 2016 and has never been president?
Do you think Trump is the first one to point out that mass mail in voting circumvents several critical components in the fraud prevention strategy?
of course not. Lots of losers and crazy people point to that to explain why they are losers and it isn't their fault. But is just as wrong as the others that say that. Mail in voting has been used for a very long time and no significant fraud has been found.
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@TWS1405_2
Nope. None of them are.
So tell me why they are not crimes, despite being literal crimes trump is charged with. And don't link to a podcast by a moron. Tell me with your own words like a big boy.
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@TWS1405_2
I think you will find these are crimes
conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
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@Greyparrot
He had the right to challenge the election results through legal means like filing lawsuits and seeking recounts or audits. You have to wonder why they're charging him with these felonies if he indeed had the constitutional right to do those things.
let me see if I can clarify this for you. You have a right to free speech. For example, you can say "I hate bob, I think he's sleeping with my wife". But you can't say "I will give you 5000 to go murder bob". One is protected free speech, the other is a crime.
the indictment isn't about what trump said about the election, nor his lawsuits. That is protected. The indictment is for all the things he tried to do to illegally overturn the results of the election. Basically, he pressured state officials and Mike pence, among others, to do things that were illegal to change the results of the election. So while technically it is what he said that was illegal, it was not his speech itself. It was the conspiracy to overturn the election results.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Not before the electors filled out the documents. Was it illegal from the time they filled out the documents until the court ruling? Until the recount?
I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to. The info I found says that before the deadline on december 13th, tabulation errors were found and recounts had shown both the democrats and republicans winning the state. There was ongoing litigation to confirm which count was correct.
There was no such thing in the last election. There was baseless allegations that were getting thrown out of court because they had absolutely no evidence. There was no evidence to suggest that the count was wrong in any of the states they tried to arrange fake electors for.
There was just as much evidence as could be expected given the likely mechanism of fraud exposed by the illegal changes to election procedure:
soo, 0? With absolutely no evidence, you feel it is justified to try to send fake electors so that the loser becomes the winner?
By sufficient forethought and architecture it can be rendered conditional upon a conspiracy size of similar magnitude as the entire body politic.An extreme example is cryptocurrency where fraud is possible only if every single participant (miner) participates in the fraud.Security doesn't require technology either. Look up the Athenian voting laws. It was complicated but if you think it through it rules out any realistic possibility of fraud and all it took was pottery and people.
so your argument is, there is no evidence of fraud, but we should assume there was fraud?
What can't be done is prove quantity, trace perpetrators, or determine the accurate results. Those are false goalposts, and all rational people who value democracy reject their imposition. The system was left vulnerable intentionally so that the guilty could not be found and the level of canvass required to quantify the fraud would never be undertaken.
this is just more of the same. There is no evidence of fraud and you want to use the lack of evidence of fraud, as evidence of fraud. Let me put it this way, would you be making the same arguments if trump won? I mean, the same system would have been used so trump's victory would be the same chance of fraud? By your logic, trump's victory in 2016 was fraudulent too.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Was it illegal in the 1960 election when Hawaii's democrat electors were sent?
because a recount found the original results to be incorrect. There was never any evidence presented that the results in these states were incorrect, much less a recount. And yet trump and his allies tried to convince the states to send fake electors even though they had lost. That is illegal.
There is a strict process for how elections work.Yes but all rules are irrelevant if you say the word "covid emergency".
you didn't make any sort of argument here. Just a vague, meaningless statement.
The PA mass mail in votes were unconstitutional, but the judges in PA didn't care. That means the PA electors were illegal, no?
Please be more specific. I'm not sure what you are referring to. could you provide a reference?
We also know that trump and his team hired people to try to find evidence of fraud and the report they got back said there wasn't any. So he knew there wasn't any fraud, and apparently that can be proven.It most certainly cannot because the reason the sham election was a sham is because fraud can't be ruled out. It was a systematic failure that no private investigator could overcome.
Fraud can never be 100% ruled out. Since no one has perfect knowledge, there is always some tiny chance that there is some secret fraud we don't know about. But they went to court with their allegations and could not find or produce any evidence of fraud. This has been the most reviewed and examined election in history and no one has managed to find any fraud.
Bottom line is trump had people investigate and they found no evidence of widespread fraud. He then willfully ignored all the available information, insisted their was fraud and tried to push through fake electors to steal the election.
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@Greyparrot
I don't care about the host, but if that's the only platform allowed to talk about things, I will turn the volume down and just read the subtitles.
if you want to watch sources that actively work to misinform people, that is your right. I'm not going to spend my time doing that, no matter who they are interviewing.
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@Greyparrot
If you didn't want to watch RFK speak, you don't have to watch the show. That's how free speech works.
I'm willing to listen to RFK. I'm not willing to listen to Jimmy Dore. I can feel myself getting dumber every time he talks.
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@Greyparrot
The Harvard/Harris poll says 4% says never heard of him.
ok. so they know who his father is and know his name. That doesn't mean they actually know who he is and what he believes. the Kennedy name is famous.
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@Greyparrot
What do you think about RFK's comments in the video I linked?
what comments specifically? That he gets bad press? he gets almost no press at all. Most people have never heard of him or heard the crazy bullshit he spews.
DEM2024A If the Democratic presidential primary for the 2024 election was held today, who would you vote for?
only 1/3rd of the people in this poll were democrats. I don't see cross tabs to see who voted for who. If all RFK's votes came from republicans then it means nothing.
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@sadolite
I missed all those trials where he was proven guilty. When did they take place?
lol you have probably heard with your own ears trump admit to some of them. There is a recording of him waving around classified documents after he had been ordered to return them. That tape is a confession. There isn't any doubt he committed the crime when we have recordings of him admitting it.
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@TWS1405_2
Cite the law(s) that clearly articulate that a sitting US President doesn't have authoritative access to presidential records during his tenure. And acquiring them after losing the election, while still being the US President, isn't a legal argument. It's a subjective emotive one. Completely baseless.
no one claims he didn't have the right to have the documents when he was president. For the sake of argument we could assume he even had the right to bring them to maralago after losing the election. But the second he stopped being president he stopped having the right to them and had to return them. And the charges are about him willfully retaining them and obstructing their return.
Again, cite the law(s) that clearly articulate that a former US President has no legal authority to be in temporary possession of presidential records from his tenure in the White House.
I seriously doubt you actually care so before doing research to find you the specific laws, I will just say this. They are the exact same laws that would apply to you or I. If someone handed you classified documents and the government said to give them back, you would have to do so the exact same way trump would have to do so. Being a former president gives him no more right to classified documents than you have.
You're one to talk about lying. The FBI knew what documents he had and directed him to keep them under lock and key, which he did. The corrupt Biden DOJ and FBI merely bought time to manufacture a fake legal situation to be charged at a later date - conveniently around the next election.
what are you talking about? he was asked like a dozen times to give the documents back and he refused to do so.
especially when a federal court says otherwise in regard to the Presidential Records Act and your unsubstantiated opinion here.
this is, in no way, related. That case was about documents that the president himself created and wanted access to after his presidency. Trump stole documents on military plans, nuclear weapons etc. He did not create any of the documents he was refusing to return. And even if he did have a right to them, if he didn't want to commit a crime he would say "yes I have the documents" and then present his reasons for wanting to keep them to a court. Instead he lyied about having them, hid them from the government etc.
All subjective conjectural nonsense. Spurious legal theories =/= [a] crime where all the statutory elements are met in order to establish said crime.
lol no. Telling state officials to "find the votes" for him to win, after he lost is a crime. Arranging a scheme for states to send fake electors that would illegally vote for Trump, is a crime. There is no conjecture here.
All the charges against Trump are purely political.
clearly you get all your news from some crazy person. No one with any knowledge of the charges could say they are "purely political".
you may want to actually read the indictment. Smith explains why that statement is stupid on page 2. It is not a crime to say you think the election was rigged. but the moment you tell people to take actions to overturn the election, what you said is now a crime. Trump's fake elector scheme was extremely illegal.
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@Savant
oof, that's a rough one. I could see why you wouldn't want to change your 1st name in that situation, but Hitler seems to be his middle name. Why wouldn't you change your middle name?
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@Greyparrot
You could also make the point the average voter doesn't know anything about Biden or Trump as well.
you could certainly make the point that most people don't know enough about those two. But they certainly know who they are and have at least a rough idea what they are about. Almost no one who isn't interested in politics knows who RFK is or what he believes. And even lots of people who are interested in politics wouldn't know much, if anything, about him.
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@Greyparrot
Jimmy put it on screen so I was able to get the jist without having to listen to him.
But my original point stands. most people have no idea who RFK is or what he believes. He has a famous name and his own views, though public, are not well known. So if you ask someone "do you like a politician with the last name Kennedy?" lots of people will say yes. If you ask someone "do you like a politician who says that corona virus was designed to kill everyone but chinese and jews?", then they would say no he is crazy. That actually is something he has said by the way.
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@Greyparrot
please link to the poll, not Jimmy Dore.
And this poll means basically nothing. Most people have no idea who he is. So when asking do you have a favorable impression of someone named Kennedy, lots of people will say yes. That doesn't mean they agree with anything he says. It doesn't mean they would vote for him for president. It just means he has a famous name and is so unknown that most people don't realize he is crazy.
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@n8nrgim
I could give ya the obstruction charge, at least if it's normal to charge people for obstruction when the underlying activity wasn't illegal. It does seem pretty serious and not right that he wouldn't comply and actively obscured them
from what I can see, all the charges against him are valid. It's possible some of them might be unsubstantiated, but so far it's looking like he committed ALOT of crimes in the tail end of his presidency and the aftermath.
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@n8nrgim
but if he had the authority to take or keep the documents in the first place
he didn't. He took the documents after he lost the election. He did not have a right to take them.
then obstruction is trying to find something with no underlying basis to it.
also untrue. Even if he had the right to take them (which he didn't), once he was told he had to give them back (because he was no longer president and wasn't allowed to have them) then refusing to give them back was illegal.
in my opinion, if someone like a president takes documents, it's a special circumstance, even if we dont like that he did it.
this is fair. And that is why he wasn't charged immediately. They spent like a year repeatedly asking him nicely to return the documents. He refused. He lied that he had them. He lied saying he had returned all of them. He hid them when they came to check if he still had them. They could have charged him right away after he took the documents. That all by itself was illegal. They didn't need to spend a year asking him nicely to do that. They did it because it was a special circumstance.
if the underlying act wasn't a crime, then the obstructing of the underlying act should't be a crime either.
this is a misunderstanding of the law. If you do something that isn't illegal, but then try to cover it up by doing things that are illegal, you still committed a crime. Take watergate for example. It was the coverup that sunk nixon.
it's too hokey to say taking the documents should be a crime, even if it technically was.
you aren't really making sense. You understand it was illegal for him to take them. You understand it was illegal for him to refuse to give them back. You understand it was illegal for him to hide the documents. You understand it was illegal for him sign a legally binding documenting saying he had returned them all when he had not (his lawyer did this at his instruction). You understand it is illegal to attempt to destroy evidence of your crimes after it has been subpoenaed. You know he did all of these crimes, but you don't think he should be punished for it because he's "special"?
i was watching the news and they had a bit on trump trying to sabatage the election process even outside of georgia.
trump and his team tried multiple ways to steal the election after he had lost. From trying to get state officials to mess with the results so that he won to trying to get state to send fake electors. Georgia is going to charge him for this in the next few weeks.
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@n8nrgim
the only two crimes that seem plausible is the georgia election interference, and the effort to stop the count and place false electors in the other elections. while that's a good argument for crimes, both crimes require that trump had to intend to commit the crimes.
1) all the other crimes are plausible too. Like stealing classified documents, refusing to give them back, lying and saying you had given them back, then trying to destroy the evidence that you had illegally tried to keep them. That is very plausible and it is highly likely he will be found guilty for it.
2) the fake electors are illegal no matter what trump's mental state is. There is a strict process for how elections work. Trying to bypass it and add fake electors to illegally hold onto power is illegal, even if you think you are doing the right thing. But also, they seem to have witnesses that say trump knew the allegations he was making were false. We also know that trump and his team hired people to try to find evidence of fraud and the report they got back said there wasn't any. So he knew there wasn't any fraud, and apparently that can be proven.
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@sadolite
Which is most likely:
that's easy. The most likely answer is he is guilty. And it's easy because the evidence of his guilt, much of it is public knowledge. Take the documents case, everyone knows he is guilty. We have all heard audio of him bragging that he has classified documents that he wasn't allowed to have.
For the new charges, it is also public knowledge. For example trying to convince pence not to ratify the results of the election. That was a crime. And everyone knows he did it. And their fake electors scheme, that was also really illegal. And they made public statements that they were doing it and filed legal documents confirming their crimes.
So while some of the details of his crimes might be in question, there really isn't any question he did the bulk of it.
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@Greyparrot
Do you really think Russia would invade Poland if we brokered a cease fire in Ukraine?
it is certainly a plausible outcome. Though they would probably go after the baltic states 1st. I'm not saying the day after a peace treaty broke out they would invade. They will need years to try to rebuild their military. But if they successfully take ukranian land by force, it is only a matter of time till they try again.
As many Americans that you know who are sold on the idea that war in general is a necessary thing regardless of the costs, multiply that by a few factors for the Russian people, as the propaganda is a good bit stronger there.
you're talking as though we don't already have precedent. Russia was forced to abandon their occupation of Afghanistan due to pressure from their own people. It was bad, but nowhere near breaking their military. They could have held out for years, but their people wouldn't tolerate it. It became a legitimate threat to their regime. And Putin's regime has already had one armed coup recently.
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@Greyparrot
So you are basically betting an as yet unidentified Civil war in Russia will allow Kiev to win their existing Civil War with the Donbas.
no. Although, given the recent coup attempt by wagner and the military's lack of response to it, that isn't a terrible bet either. But my bet is that the russian people don't want this war. They don't care about Ukraine, or russia committing genocide on them. But they also don't want their family members killed in it. This is why Putin didn't want to do conscription even when it was obvious he needed it. He only did it when he was risking being overrun entirely. He knows that conscripting for a war the people don't want is dangerous. The people basically made the soviets abandon afganistan. They could do the same now.
Not that any outcome here actually helps anyone in America except the government getting kickbacks off of all the military spending.
what are you talking about? That outcome benefits everyone. America has been the leader of the world for decades. It profits massively off this arrangement. Russia wants to end this. If they succeed in a major redrawing of the map using violence, then america's leadership and the era of peace we have been is in jeopardy. Every dictator in the world will see that you can invade your neighbor and steal their land and america and the west will let it happen. Russia will absolutely invade again. China will invade Taiwan. Wars around the world will increase. And that is bad for america, and everyone else.
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@Greyparrot
fter a year of fighting, both forces now rely heavily on conscripts — a development that favors Russia since Moscow has more people it can call up than Kyiv.
I disagree with this assessment. Russia does have more people, but that doesn't mean they have the capacity to conscript more people. Ukraine has overwhelming support for the war effort. Russia's support for the war is more ambiguous. The russian army was basically running out of men before they were willing to do a round of conscription. They should have done it months earlier than they did. The fact that putin refused to do it for so long shows that he is afraid of conscripting. so it is far from clear how many people Russia can actually conscript before creating a critical problem. When the russians invaded afganistan, they eventually got sick of so many dead russians and they were forced to run away. Russia has already lost far more men than in Afghanistan.
The fact that the russian military did almost nothing to stop Wagner's march on moscow shows even the military is not particularly willing to stick their neck out for Putin.
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@Greyparrot
he line is kind of fuzzy between these 2 things. But what source do you have that says Ukraine is meeting its conscription goals to be able to take the Donbas back?
What does that even mean? There is no magic number of men required to retake it, so I'm not sure how a source could say they have or haven't reached it
A source from over a year ago saying they are worried what might happen.
You will have to be more specific what you are talking about from this article. This is a quote from it.
The Ukrainian army enjoys stratospheric morale and is punching far above its weight against Vladimir Putin’s troops, tanks and missiles. Thousands of foreigners have flocked to join its newly created International Legion, while Russian troops abandon their posts.
this source basically says both sides are taking heavy casualties but that russian casualties are much higher.
this one is paywalled so I can't read it.
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@Greyparrot
I'm extremely skeptical of those odds for 2 reasons. That article I linked to you showed Russia is using 4 times more artillery strikes than Ukraine, which accounts for about 80 percent of the casualties.
that isn't necessarily a good thing. Russian artillery tends to do saturation fire. They just blanket an area with shells without aiming as something specific. They just aim at a town, not a specific position. But this kind of fire isn't all that effective. Ukranians, fielding more accurate and longer range western artillery engage in more target specific fire. So they see what they want to kill with a drone, then target and kill it. So they can use a fraction of the shells and inflict more damage.
every war strategist will maintain that the defensive, entrenched force has an overwhelming tactical advantage.
not in an artillery duel where one side has longer range, more accurate fire.
Lol, not exactly. This was a petty oligarch butting heads and losing
They successfully seized control of the military headquarters in Rostov. That is not a small feat. And it's also the sort of thing the russian army should have stopped. It is something the russian army was ordered to stop. But they didn't. They let wagner through because they didn't care enough to fight them.
It's because Wagner lost control because they are completely dependent on the Russian government for supplies and logistics.
so far, it kind of looks like wagner won. They are still intact and being paid. Prigozin is still in russia. And the generals he was fighting with are being removed.
worse on the Ukraine side, as they are forced to take the old, sick and crippled people off Ukrainian streets to throw into the meatgrinder to replace all those dead people blown to unrecognizable bits with artillery.
lol the sources you are quoting either don't say that, or they are extremely suspicious.
Let's take the 1st one. The quotes they are using are from over a year ago. And they aren't talking about men being conscripted. They are talking about men being turned back at the border, because they aren't allowed to leave. They aren't kidnapping them. They aren't conscripting them.
For the 2nd one, the Delphi Initiative seems to be a russian funded organization. The author doesn't provide any references for his claims. He just says people are being grabbed, without proof. He also seems to be the leader of the Ukranian communist party. I can't find much info on him other than him angrily saying "anglo-saxon" countries were causing a panic by saying russia was about to invade and demanding that they pay compensation to Ukraine (for warning them of their impending invasion). He isn't exactly a trustworthy source. And his language (like calling western countries "anglo-saxon" mimics russian propaganda pieces.
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@Greyparrot
True, but not the Donbas. That's the measure for victory in your mind, no?
Victory over Russia is most likely to come by making them hit their breaking point. They need to get to the point where fighting is no longer worth the cost. The odds that Ukraine can physically force them off of every square inch of their territory isn't great. But the odds that they can bleed the Russian military until it can't fight is decent.
For example, Wagner just managed to take over a major russian city, and get most of the way to moscow with almost no russian soldiers even attempting to stop them. Morale in the russian army is not good. They just have to be pushed until they break. Then Ukraine wins.
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@Sidewalker
The big Jan 6 bombs will start exploding next week. He's got two optios, Presidency or prison, and he doesn't get to be President again.
maybe. But state crimes cannot be pardoned. So if he is convicted in Georgia, he cannot pardon himself even if he wins.
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@Greyparrot
Do you really know what's going on right now? Russia presently has an overwhelming advantage tactically on the ground mostly because of the attrition of trained Ukrainian solders.
what? where do you get your information from? That is not accurate.
The "advances" are so miniscule that some have cynically suggested the war could be over in 120 years if the goal is to reclaim every inch of Donbas soil.
they have retaken thousands of square miles of their country back. I don't think anyone could call that miniscule. And you know what they say, defeat comes slowly at 1st, then all at once. Russia is taking an absolute beating. They are running out of money and equipment. They just had an attempted coup where thousands of russian soldiers took control of a major russian city and began marching on moscow. If things had gone a little differently, Russia might have already collapsed.
Ukraine has almost no artillery ammo left while Russia has massive ammunition plants churning 24/7 in the Ural mountain regions where no missiles from Ukraine can reach.
russia has been consistently restricting ammunition usage because they have shortages. They don't have the capacity to produce enough shells to replace their usage.
None of the Donbas is projected to be retaken anytime soon.
again, I have no idea where you are getting your information. Ukraine has made gains in the donbass recently.
This is just another Vietnam where we have absolutely no business in,
this isn't even remotely similar to vietnam. I have no idea why you would make this comparison.
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@ludofl3x
Of course it's true, it's cribbed from the chatgpt bot or some other AI search engine, that whole enumerated list.
lol, I hadn't realized. That might explain why he is listing stuff that doesn't really relate to what we are talking about.
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@Greyparrot
I don't know, Poland makes me hella nervous about its intentions.
Their intention is not to get invaded. Large chunks of Poland have been owned by Russia. All of poland was controlled by the soviet union. They know that if Ukraine falls, they move one higher on russia's list of conquests.
The Treaty of Versailles, which was imposed on Germany after World War I, played a major role in weakening the country both economically and politically.
this is true. The treaty was designed to completely cripple germany so it could never be a threat again. No one has done or suggested anything even remotely similar against russia. No one is suggesting indemnity payments that are completely unpayable. No one is suggesting that Russia be banned from having a military. so the treaty of Versailles is completely irrelevant in this is discussion.
This is why we should not be pursuing a reckless path towards escalation of a war with unrealistic victory conditions.
no one is doing that. The victory conditions are obvious. Russia is forced to leave Ukraine. Russia is already losing ground, so the trends just need to continue. Comparing this to Vietnam or Afghanistan is just delusional. Doubly so because America isn't even fighting in the war.
You know that America destroyed the 2014 peace in Ukraine.
No, I know the exact opposite of that. I know the Ukrainian people got fed up with their government doing the opposite of what they wanted and so they ejected their kremlin loving government. As a result, Russia started arming terrorists and then invaded and stole the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
And you also said earlier you would be willing to settle for a peace that reverted it back to the status of 2014
no, I said that's a good starting point. It might be that that is the best that we can get, but we should absolutely be shooting for all ukranian land to be returned.
2014 was a situation where there were no winners or losers. Ukraine didn't have the Donbas, sure, but neither did Russia.
by 2014, I mean Ukraine regaining it's borders. The entire world recognized the donbass as part of Ukraine in 2014 (they still do by the way). Any peace deal requires this land to be under Ukranian control again.
America should be fighting for the Donbas if they want peace like there was in 2014, not Kiev, but you and I both know this war isn't about principles.
I have no ide what this means. Are you suggesting donbass is some kind independent entity? They absolutely are not. They are a puppet state funded and armed by russia. They are not and never have been independent of Russian control.
You should be concerned a LOT more about the economic alliance between India and Russia.
why? No one actually wants russia to stop selling it's raw materials. That would cause a global recession. They want to reduce russia's ability to profit from this. And they have been pretty successful at that.
Thanks to India, Russia's GDP contracted a whopping 2 percent, essentially enabling the funding of Russia's military in perpetuity.
those are the official russian government statistics. Russia has banned publication of many, many statistics in an effort to hide the economic damage of the war. They only release the stats they want the world to see, IE the ones that make them look strong and/or have been messed with. So if russia says it's 2%, you can pretty much guarantee it is worse than that. They want everyone to believe that sanctions don't work to undermine support for them.
Russia is hemorrhaging money. They absolutely cannot keep this up indefinitely.
If India is willing to do this, it's not a stretch to say India would not escalate its alliance should NATO escalate theirs.
this doesn't even make sense. India and russia do not have an alliance. They never have. India is taking advantage of russian weakness and profiting off of it. They can buy up russian resources on the cheap, then resell them for more. This benefits India. Signing some kind of military agreement with russia absolutely does not benefit them.
Russia supplies a large percentage of India's weapons. But that percentage has been shrinking for years. And with Russia needing all of it's weapons at home, they are not going to be in a position to supply India in the next few years. So they will need to lean more on their other sources of weapons, France, The US, Israel, South Korea, Germany etc. So getting closer to Russia would be dangerous for them.
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@Greyparrot
Tucker questions Tim Scott's hawkish stance on Ukraine and asks if he has considered attempting to force a peace agreement.
what exactly would this be? Russia has invaded Ukraine twice in 8 years. They have made it clear that they see Ukraine as part of Russia and will not tolerate them being an independent country. As long as russia continue to hold this view, there cannot be actual peace. Anything negotiated now would be a cease fire so russia can get ready for invasion number 3.
Tucker presses further, inquiring how to end the war, but Tim Scott seems uncertain about achieving a peaceful resolution.
that's easy. Russia is forced out of Ukraine. Or takes so much damage that they agree to leave Ukraine. It is the only way this war can end.
Tim Scott doesn't explain why weakening Russia's military and economy while also expanding NATO and encroaching on Russia's border brings us further from nuclear Armageddon rather than closer.
oh I can explain that to you. Russia sees itself as an empire. They see themselves as a "special" people who have the right to empire. And they are working on reconquering lost territory. Their wars in Chechnia, Georgia, Ukraine (the 1st time), Ukraine (the 2nd time) have all been toward this end. The modern world order is based on the idea that you cannot redraw nations borders with war. Russia has been pushing further and further against this idea. To the point that they are now looking to annex vast stretches of territory based on nothing more than "might makes right". If they succeed, the next war is inevitable. Russia will try this again. If russia loses, we might be able to curb their desire for empire and actually get peace. Thus bringing us further from nuclear Armageddon.
WW2 was a direct result of weakening the German military and economy while also encroaching on their country.
no, no it wasn't. WW2 was caused by Germany invading it's neighbors. czechoslovakia, austria and Poland. The war didn't start because germany was protecting itself. It started because Germany saw itself as a "special" nation with the right to an empire. And when they tried to claim that empire by force, a war started. Just like russia is doing now. The only question is, do we keep appeasing them by letting them annex a little more territory? Maybe that will make them happy and they will stop? Or do we stand up to them before they invade poland?
Step 2, decimate a country's military and finances while encroaching on their borders.
I'm sorry, when did that happen? No one ever "encroached on their borders". Independent countries who were afraid of them asked for protection from them. If they are unhappy that this happened, they should look at themselves to see why their neighbors wanted to be protected from them. The real reason they hate their neighbors joining nato is because they want to invade them, and now they can't.
Also, Russia was doing very well financially before they invaded Ukraine. The sanctions are a direct result of their war mongering.
Tim Scott also does not explain why indirectly creating powerful alliances against America such as the recent India, China, and Russia alliance formed in retaliation for America's anti-Asian policies helps to secure Domestic American sovereignty.
lol, there is no such alliance. India's biggest enemy is china (well, maybe 2nd biggest). There is increased trade relations, but there is absolutely no military co-operation between india and china. And china has stayed very quiet about russia. They have made no military agreements with them.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
WW1 devastated Europe due to an explosion of defense pacts such as NATO's article 5.What? NATO was formed in 1949. You don’t know what you are talking about, as usual
He is partially right. In the lead up to WW1, the great powers made a series of alliances that would pull each other into a conflict with the others. And Russia had such an alliance with Serbia since they saw themselves as the protector of slavic peoples. So when Austria-Hungry attacked serbia, Germany was "forced" (due to the schlieffen plan) to declare war on russia and france. Then britain declared on germany to protect their ally france. Then japan joined the war due to their alliance with Britain. Etc. This is how a regional conflict in the balkans turned into a world war.
But this has absolutely nothing to do with modern events. There is no complicated web of Alliances like in the early 1900's. There is 1 alliance that makes up a vast, insurmountable military block. Russia absolutely cannot win such a conflict, and they know it. So bringing up WW 1 is still stupid.
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@n8nrgim
maybe i'm not being clear enough. if a victim was dependent upon a criminal's body for three months months, would you say the criminal can terminate?
Your scenario doesn't make sense, so I can't possibly agree or disagree with it. How would a person be dependent on another persons body? The only things they could provide for them would be blood or organs. In either case, that is what a blood transfusion or organ transplant is for. So I cannot imagine any scenario that resembles your description.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
He’s a wimp who acts like a tough guy.What is the paper tiger in politics?If you say that an institution, a country, or a person is a paper tiger, you mean that although they seem powerful they do not really have any power.
I mean, the poor people and minorities he has targeted in Florida would disagree. He definitely isn't a paper tiger to them.
And his lack of power doesn't have anything to do with him really. It is due to trump. Trump is a cult leader that sucks up all the oxygen and has fanatical support among a large chunk of the republican base. But if trump hypothetically had a heart attack and died tomorrow. Desantis would likely jump out to being the front runner and would have real power on a national level. And since he is even more hateful and disgusting than trump, he would be a real threat to everyone.
I still think "coward" better describes him than "paper tiger". But maybe I am just splitting hairs. If he is a paper tiger, than pretty much all republicans in america are, since they are all scared of crossing trump.
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@n8nrgim
i made the point but you didn't seem to pick up on it. why do you think a mother should have to carry a late term baby but a criminal has no obligation to use his body to support a hypothetical victim?
I answered you pretty clearly, but I will do so again. At a certain point a fetus becomes a person. At that point, it gains rights and protections. Therefore terminating it should be illegal. But if the mother were put in a situation where carrying the baby to term was likely to cause her death (like some medical emergency) then obviously the baby could be terminated to save the mother.
No one is asking a mother to die for a fetus. If carrying the fetus to term was going to kill her, it would be extremely immoral to force her to do so. You are implying we should murder a criminal and harvest their organs to save their victim. This is wildly immoral. It is not just to murder one person in order to save another.
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@Athias
Why is it that "personhood" includes for inanimate objects? And if your response is that it's intended to protect such and such... then you're not really answering anything.
you're not really making any sense. You know the reason why a legal person/legal entity can be inanimate objects then say that the answer to that question isn't really an answer.
Seem is not an argument; and do not confuse "objection" with "ignorance/misunderstanding."
but you aren't objecting. All you have done is repeatedly say it is arbitrary without ever providing a reason why. That's not an objecting.
Quote the part you believe applies to this discussion.
I mean, pretty much all of it since this is a description of the legal term we are discussing. but this for starters.
In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity)[1][2] that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on.[3][4][5] The reason for the term "legal person" is that some legal persons are not people: companies and corporations are "persons" legally speaking (they can legally do most of the things an ordinary person can do), but they are not people in a literal sense (human beings).
You just seem to not understand the words you are using.Seem is not an argument.
lol, all you are doing is repeatedly saying the word is arbitrary without ever demonstrating that you understand the word you are using. All I can say is "seem" since as far as I can tell you don't understand the word properly. You seem to be getting hung up on the word "person", but the legal term "person" and the colloquial term "person" are very different things. That is why I provided the link.
I already know. My contention is based on the hypocrisy of those who would claim that a "Lake" is/ought to be a legally protected "person" or object, while also claiming a live human being, i.e. zygote/embryo/fetus should not.
ok, again. A "legal person" has nothing to do with being human. You seem to be implying there is some reason why a zygote/embryo should inherently have that term applied to it, but you have made no argument as to why this is so. If you want to go over specific cases of why some other object was deemed to be a person we can do that. But it really sounds like your argument is coming from an emotional use of the word person rather than a logical understanding of the term "legal person".
Why do you think a fetus should inherently be deemed a legal person? Why do you think an inanimate object shouldn't? Unless I understand why you keep making these statements, I can't see what hypocrisy you are talking about.
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@n8nrgim
there are lots of people who say there should be no restrictions on abortion. they say we should just trust women, and they usually point out that it woudln't be common for a woman to abort late term just for the heck of it.
who exactly? I've never met such a person or even heard of one.
t sounds like you wouldn't use the argument that the women should take responsibility for her the consequences of her choices, but i dont know how you would frame the argument when it comes to why you would accept the restrictions you would agree to.
Because at some point at fetus becomes a person. When that happens, a person has legal and moral protections, like the right to life. At moment of conception it obviously isn't a person and should not be protected. At the moment of birth it obviously does. So a line needs to be drawn somewhere to denote when this occurs. It has absolutely nothing to do with the mother's choices.
it would be very easy to just say a baby has no right to her mother's body, period.
it does not. When it crosses the line to being a person, it has a right to it's own life. And at that point it is reasonable to protect it. But that point is usually much later than anti-abortion laws try to restrict. Which is why, in general, anti abortion laws are horrible. Because they are aimed at making it as difficult as humanly possible for a woman to get one. In some states they make it virtually impossible.
you say in no circumstance should a criminal be required to use his body to provide for his victim. but that means you are willing to support the death of the victim.
that is correct. It is not just to murder someone, even to save someone else.
i dont see how you justify requiring the woman to support the baby later in her pregnancy.
because at a certain point, the fetus becomes a person. At that point it gains the rights and protections of a person.
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@Athias
Submit the description of the term that was used in granting legal personhood to a Lake, and delineate how it is different from how I've applied the term.
that depends on what exactly you are talking about. More than 1 body of water has been designated a legal person. But typically this is to grant a specific natural feature (a water shed, forest etc) additional protections from pollution or some other man made destruction. Lake Erie, for example, was made a legal person by voters.
but legally it is an important distinction.Why?
I explained it in the rest of the paragraph you clipped this from. A legal person has protections under the law. So whether or not someone/something is a legal person is an important question when determining what rights or protections that person/thing has.
a fetus does not.Because it is not as much of a "person" as a lake is.
correct. A fetus is not a legal person, some bodies of water are. I think you are getting tripped up on the word person. It doesn't mean a human being.
Perhaps this is where the core of our disagreement is. I am using "person" in the legal sense. In law, a person can be a human, a company, a statue, a body of water etc.And this is arbitrary.
No, you seem to not understand the concept of a legal person. It doesn't mean a human. Maybe the term "legal entity" would be less confusing for you. Have a look at this for more details.
Being a person and being a human are not even really related in a legal sense.Because the legal description of personhood is based on whim.
no, it's not. You just seem to not understand the words you are using. Please have a look at the definition of a legal person/legal entity. You seem to be confusing it with the word "human" and getting tripped up.
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@Athias
Nope, it's arbitrary. It's not necessarily a matter of my disagreeing with the reasoning. Granting personhood to an inanimate object is not consistent with the description of personhood. Its even less consistent when a zygote/embryo/fetus is not legally protected because they're not persons, but a "lake" can be.
you aren't actually describing something arbitrary though. You are just describing separate usages of the same term.
What is your preferred description of "arbitrary?"
"based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system." And no one flipped a coin to decide if something is a person or not. They looked at the available information and requirements of a specific situation and decided based on that information if something/someone should be a legal person. That is not arbitrary. That is a series of decisions based on differing information and situation.
Honestly? I don't think personhood should even be considered. A pregnant woman has a right to behave her womb as she pleases whether the zygote/embryo/fetus is a person or not.
I can understand your point, but legally it is an important distinction. A person has certain rights and protections, a fetus does not. If you determine a fetus is a person, you cannot abort it (except in emergencies or something).
Perhaps this is where the core of our disagreement is. I am using "person" in the legal sense. In law, a person can be a human, a company, a statue, a body of water etc. It does not mean the same thing as what a random person might mean when they say a "person". Being a person and being a human are not even really related in a legal sense.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
I guess it depends on what you mean by paper tiger. Usually, that term means they pretend to be a threat but actually aren't. In desantis' case, I don't see how that applies. He is genuinely a terrible person who would do terrible things if elected president. He is every bit as despicable as trump is. His corruption, his desire to hurt poor people and minorities, his need for power and control. And since he actually has a track record of doing these things successfully in florida, he is actually much more threatening that trump.
But he is also deathly afraid of trump since his cultists are disturbingly, violently loyal to him. So I would say him being a coward is more accurate than a paper tiger.
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@Greyparrot
So you admit this is all about power and not peace? I get the whole "peace through strength" narrative, but at some point, you have to wonder where that heavy hand ends?
of course not. I made a whole bunch of points, you picked one of them and said "so it's all about that". And power and peace are not mutually exclusive. every "pax" in human history was caused by that nation having power. America having more power than anyone else is what has caused the "pax americana". Power and peace are overlapping in this context.
America can use this soft power for good...Iraq proved that we can't.
what? One bad leader invaded another country for shitty reasons, and that means america can't do what it has been doing for decades? Which part of the world is the most peaceful it has ever been are you not getting? It doesn't matter how many shitty things you point out, because you are not engaging with my point. The world is in a much, much better place that it ever has been in the history of our species. Does america still do shitty things? Absolutely. That does not change the fact that world is a much, much better place because they are a super power. And nothing you have said has even attempted to deny that.
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@Athias
It's not complicated; it's whimsical and arbitrary. You can grant an inanimate object "person-hood" but not a human being at the first phase of its development?
I disagree. It isn't arbitrary. It is always based on something. No one has ever said, I want that tree to be a legal person and poof it was so. You might not agree with the logic or reasoning behind a determination, but it isn't arbitrary.
his demonstrates to me at the very least the concept of "person-hood" isn't based on any consistent principle.
This is true. In different contexts a legal person doesn't always mean the same thing. For example, corporations are legal persons in the eyes of the law, but they don't have "bodily autonomy". So the logic between the 2 is not consistent. But it still isn't arbitrary.
No, stating that a question, which is "difficult" and sometimes comes to a strange answer, is moot and absurd is actually quite rational and erudite when the conclusion being scrutinized is quite silly.
what conclusion specifically are you scrutinizing and finding silly? A specific case of someone/something being a person? The entire concept of personhood? Are you saying that who is a person should be simple?
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@Greyparrot
Again, I thought you were a Sanders supporter?
1) I did support bernie sanders' as president. He was the best candidate. It doesn't mean I necessarily approve of all of his policy positions
2) I do think america sells too many weapons to too many shitty people. I but also recognize that there is nuance here. For example, Russia is basically unable to build any of it's new T14 Armata tanks because they can't sell any. Russia can't afford (or doesn't want to spend that much) to build new factories to build them. If they could find buyers for them, then they could bring the cost per unit down by using economies of scale. But since no one wants to buy them, the cost per unit would be super high, so they don't build them. And their military is weaker as a result.
American weapons companies selling lots of weapons abroad means they have the capacity to build lots of weapons. If america finds itself in the position where it needs to buy alot of weapons suddenly, there are alot more available if they are already building them to sell to other countries. The factories and know how already exist and are ready to go. So there is a significant national security issue here.
3) selling weapons to countries gives you leverage over them. If their entire airforce is made up of F 16s they have to listen to what you say. You have the ability to cut them off from support for those weapons because they need software updates, replacement parts, etc. So if they want to say, invade their neighbor, you have the ability to pressure them into not doing it without having to threaten a war. Because going to war and then having your planes fall out of the sky would not be good. America can use this soft power for good, even if selling weapons itself might not be. So saying that selling weapons is automatically a bad thing, is not true.
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