ILikePie5

You talk shit about an Iranian General but what of the Russian generals literally committing terror over Ukraine right now by tricking 19 year olds into dying for a cause they didn't even understand when they were told to go on a special military operation.

19 year old men. 22 year old men. thousands of them.

this is fucking sickening.

To support that argument, I'd like to see some evidence that the amount of drilling would have increased to levels near or over the amount we took in from Russia. Again, I'm not arguing that Biden's decision to stop issuing permits for fracking or drilling was beneficial for oil prices. I'm arguing that there was always going to be a substantial gap between the increase we could feasibly achieve within the US and the amount we take in from Russia. Saying that it would eventually increase investments in oil production domestically doesn't modify that - you're still talking about months or years for those new investments to bear fruit, and it's unclear that any amount of investment in domestic production would entirely cover for Russian oil.

You can claim that the media would cover for him, but the evidence would necessarily be available to every member of Congress, many of whom would have every incentive to leak it. If you honestly believe that the media could give him sufficient cover for this, then I'm just baffled.

...They would spin... a very large-scale purchase of oil... from Iran and Venezuela... as a humanitarian effort? And you honestly think people would buy that shit, especially given that half the country was already actively opposed to Biden shortly after he was elected? Can't help but notice that you ignored the rest of the absurdities inherent to your scenario, but this takes the cake. 

Not going to disagree that refusing to increase domestic production contributed to this problem, though I think claiming that his doing so would have solved for this entirely is a different story. Biden would have had to find means to either bring down oil usage in this country or obtain oil from external sources regardless, so I think the long-term issue is non-unique. The only difference is degree.

Alright, at least this is a clear stance on what the US should do. Given that producing more oil domestically would obviously come with delays in the process of ramping up production (usually in the timeline of at least several months), this isn't really a short term solution to the problem of limited resources. It indicates that he should have pushed for more drilling early in his administration, which I'll grant you would have been beneficial, but it's not a solution to rising gas prices now. I have my issues with trying to get oil from Iran or Venezuela as well, though at this point, addressing the short-term pain of limited oil supplies while keeping up the ban on Russian oil requires either getting it from another country or waiting out the delay. I see problems with both, though refusing to ban Russian oil would have incurred its own problems.

Where would you set the line they could not cross?

The idea that the president would allow his team to pick the candidate is absurd. Clearly, you are the one here who needs to read up on this position and how important it is. Please read the link.

New war with who?

The wall is still not built

You’re probably right about Soleimani, no other president would have been that dumb enough to risk war with Iran in order to kill one of their top generals only for them to be replaced with a more extreme general.

You guys act like Trump killed Osama Bin Laden. He didn’t. I’m willing to bet you had no idea who he was until this.

Gas prices are so high right now because Saudi Arabia is making gas really expensive here because the US won't sell them weapons to do a genocide in Yemen.  If your willing to sell weapons to a country you know is going to do genocide with those weapons just to get cheaper gas prices, don't call yourself pro life.

What I expected you to do was to find a way to dismiss most or all of it, and you didn’t disappoint!

Does the Buck stop with Trump or not? The greatest president of our lifetimes and he can’t even pick his own National security advisor?

Because doing something good is not enough to erase all of the bad. President’s are judged by the totality of what they brought to the table. We could go on for days, but the simple fact is that there is almost nothing you could point to as a Trump victory which you would not have gotten from any other Republican candidate.

But there are numerous things that only Trump was responsible for. As just one example, the fact that half the country thinks Joe Biden and the democrats stole the election is a Trump and only Trump thing. No other president would have caused that.

There is nothing deranged about understanding this, and our kids and grandkids will definitely understand it.

I think China can read the strategic map as well as any and come to the same conclusion:  there's no probable scenario where this ends well for Russia.

Oil is now 135 dollars a barrel. America is still buying Putin oil.

Trump did pick him didn’t he?

And I already explained to you that I would continue the conversation in the debate comments, not here on a forum about Russia.

You talk about my ego, you’re the one who ignored an entire post about the topic at hand to talk about a debate you won over a year ago all because I expressed my desire to find intelligent people to discuss issues with. Yet with every post you prove my point over and over again. There are few things on a debate site more distasteful than derailing a thread to talk about one of your own debates, but here we are and you don’t even have any awareness of how childish it makes you look.

Fair and square is inclusive of context-abusive resolutions yes?

Then you won fair and square by making the semantics of the debate revolve around impeachment being what was not to be done to the ex-president even though he was unfit to be president and fucked up so much so many times and is corrupt to the core.

If you really want to continue this dick measuring contest leave a comment in the debate.

I didn’t accuse you of vote bombing and it’s not for me to judge who won the debate. I was responding to your chest beating acting as if people who agreed with you and voted on that basis confirms that you “crushed me” or whatever verbiage you used. The only exception was Ragnar who’s vote according to him might have possibly gone a different way if the link I posted actually worked.

No. I’m not the one who brought up a year old debate. If anyone else is interested in reading it and providing feedback I welcome it, but not asking anyone else to get involved in some childish dick measuring contest.

WTF? Are you serious? I wrote this entire post:

Go on, tell me all about the questions of yours that I ignored. Can’t wait to hear this…

There have been many cases of American values being trampled or American allies being lured away from the American camp.

There are plenty of military confrontation against weaker adversaries that have costed the USA money and lives.

There have been terrorist attacks against the USA.

There have been nuclear threats against the USA, like in 1962 in Cuba.

Many countries have produced cheap at the expense of American jobs.

Many organisations have sent refugees to the USA.

[b] You forgot to answer my question.

[25] If you made that up, it is understandable you won't present a source.

[27] If their case falls apart so quickly, rational people review their position. I suspect you don't.

Do you like my profile pic?

Coal is much more right-leaning than left-leaning tbh.

Go on and beat your chest because all your friends who already agreed with you voted for you for reasons that had nothing to do with the debate if that makes you feel smart…

So you’re not even going to pretend you’re here to have serious conversation. Got it.

I can’t wait till schools have time off and I can finally find some serious intelligent people on this site to go back and forth with.

The part where I wrote actual words.

I never said nor implied that he was a Russian agent, you made that up entirely.

Your argument is nothing more than an argument from ignorance used as an excuse to ignore the facts I just laid out. The question of why Putin decided to invade is an unknown. “I don’t know why Putin made this choice” does not equal “Putin invaded because Trump is gone”. 

All the identity politics and nonsense got to you guys. It's not just the left. American right has lost sight of what a man is too. 

Which US politician do you uphold as having been tough on Russia, then?

John Bolton claims the evidence points to Russia not thinking their military was ready to invade yet.

I wrote a whole post responding to those comments. Instead of only replying to those you agree with, feel free to attempt an actual productive conversation.

Yes, serious issue. We need to be more like countries with great, big, strong leadership where inflation and commodity prices are under control... like... Russia?

It seems your cerebral cortex is not properly working. You think that raising gas prices is the most critical issue right now? You're wrong. There are humans dying from Putin's war hawk attitude, and also in the last 4 days, he has committed multiple war crimes and murder.

And you're worried about a possible 0.50 raise on gas prices? Also, How is Afghanistan, Syria or Libya even relevant to this conversation? I think just maybe the title of the forum is, "Why should Americans care about Ukraine?". But thats just a lucky guess. 

3. Action speak louder than words. The dude literally bombed a Russian ally, sent Ukraine javelins that are becoming crucial on the war front, and sanctioned Russia several times. That’s not puppet behavior. Point blank. No amount of trying to be friendly leading up to a summit with a world leader will change that.

Fair enough about the rest, but it does seem to me that sanctions do absolutely nothing here. 

You agree? Do you not know about how Russia arrests and throws people in jail for going against the government or are you trying to make an edgy take?

Lol, the only Democracies worth supporting are the ones that respect American power. Today that means no democracies.

There are worse case scenarios than that one. If you think that being remotely close to beating the American military is a requirement for violating American intests, then you should climb out from under your rock and learn some history.

The Ukrainian government is a legitimate democracy that could stand on its own two feet until Russia decided to destroy it because it was inconvenient to them. 

Afghanistan was never a legitimate democracy, we spent 20 years trying to prop it up in our image because what they had was inconvenient to us.

Why do I need to explain this?

These two examples are not remotely the same, but you already know that.