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Trump's Second Term

Ziggurat said:
The memo explicitly says the cancelation isn't limited to those listed companies, but it's not clear to me that there were any media subscriptions to Trump-friendly media, and they would still be covered by the general category described.
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I can imagine why the State Department would want a subscription to Penthouse
 
theprestige said:
Yes.

That's up to Ukraine to decide. Right now it's a risk, that we're exacerbating by trickling military aid. And right now, that's a risk Ukraine is willing to take. I think we can honor their commitment, and reduce the risk - the cost in Ukrainian lives - by giving them more aid faster.

More aid, faster. Manufacture ammunition, send it to Ukraine. Manufacture drones, send them to Ukraine. Send more medical supplies. Send more generators. Send more water purifiers. Send more tanks. Send more planes. Send more intel. Send more EW gear. Send more night vision. SEND MORE.

Sending more aid faster will make it happen sooner. Sending more aid faster in 2022 and 2023 and 2024 would have made it a lot faster. But better late than never.

Then we should invest more heavily in ensuring that there's someone left to trade with. By sending more aid faster.

Ten billion to secure Ukraine as a trading partner is a far better investment than one billion to secure Russia as a trading partner.
No. The American right has pretty much turned its back on Ukraine, in favor of a Trumpist and frankly bizarre capitulation to mother ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ Moscow. That's been a big impediment to sending more aid faster. It's about to get worse, and I think that sucks.

I think we can actually get more aid to Ukraine, faster. I think we can actually get Russia to collapse and rout, if we send more aid, faster. You're right that "just keep doing what we're doing" doesn't suffice. Let's do more. Faster.

And territorial gains are a terrible metric, for a weak defender. Attrition over time and space is the play for Ukraine. We can and should do a lot more to make that attrition as time-and-space efficient as possible.
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I don't often agree with you, but when you're right, you're right.


And RE: the highlighted, it would also gain you a lot of respect & appreciation in Europe, & in other countries that feel under theat from Russia or other aggressive nations which would be reflected in trade, not to mention that making such a powerful statement would do much to help make for a more peaceful World in the longer term, which will itself improve trade for everyone.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
That's not how any of this works: you can't "buy" a functioning military, no matter how much you spend.
You need to order, get built and train on the equipment and vehicles.
You have to recruit and train a LOT of people.
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True.
The Great Zaganza said:
You have to expose them to actual combat.
Thia takes many, many years.
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A lot of European countries have been fighting in America's wars for decades.
The Great Zaganza said:
Add to that that military service is something most Europeans don't want to do, and you are looking at a decade before the continent is in actual fighting shape no matter how much money you spent .
Thia is just about handing money to domestic defense contractors.
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Nonsense. Look at all the investments going into Ukrainian defense contractors ( the "Danish Model".)
The Great Zaganza said:
If you actually wanted to build up Europe's defense, you would look were you can buy a lot of tested stuff relatively cheap - South Korea comes to mind for tanks.
Plus every single Ukrainian drone operator.

But that won't happen, because Europe can only justify defense spending if it's on EU companies.
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Can you tell me if South Korea's constitution allows them to sell weapons that are going to active war zones?
 
No problem for South Korea.
But it can just do it through the joint venture it has with Poland to build tanks in Europe to make it even easier.
 
chrispy said:
You just KNOW he will make it a Hitler-esque rally about himself.
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It’ll be the perfect event for him to stage the enormous Soviet/N. Korean-style military parade* in D.C., the idea of which he’s long jacked off to.


*Hundreds of tanks! Countless artillery pieces! But no cripples!
 
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Give the wealthy 4.5 Trillion in tax cuts. Gut all social safety nets, public safety programs and tax everyone else more.
They're adding more deficit spending and debt while cutting everything for everyone that isn't wealthy while trying to convince us all that it's about balancing the budget and making gov't more efficient.
 
It's the only way to get a libertarian utopia ... that for some reason hates immigrants and abortion.

Hmm.
 
Andy_Ross said:
You think that countries in Europe don't have equipment and vehicles or high quality training already?
Why would anyone need tanks from South Korea when Europe already as a number of excellent designs in service and in production?
What proportion of the US military have been exposed to combat?

You are funny.
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Most of Europe had conscription until recently and some countries still do. The UK was the exception in having a volunteer army and using it. The French of course had the foreign legion and have been fairly active. So I think for much of Europe returning to a Swiss or Norwegian model of conscription and being able to rapidly arm a large citizen army would be easy. I am sure there are sims for fighting drones, just recruit the top teens into weekend drone warriors. Europe can make all the weapons it needs, aircraft, tanks, artillery, missiles. What I think has been emphasised is the need for having large and secure and distributed stocks of munitions.

Whilst i am not in general prone to promote Vixen's views, she is correct in pointing out the Finns did maintain independence from USSR without being a member of Nato (as did the Swedes, the Yugoslavs, the Albanians).

The US needs an expensive army because it has an offensive force designed to operate overseas. A defensive force operating at home is far cheaper. The only points that Russia has contact with EU / NATO / Western Europe is Norway, Sweden, Finland (all of which managed not to be invaded at the height of the cold war), Estonia and Latvia. I would argue for making a neutral border and saying Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Estonia, Finland should be neutral and not allied with NATO or Russia.
 
Just read that Elon is now getting pushback from MAGA's religous wing which does not like at all his whole Transhuman obessesion which in the end revolves around Muak making himself through Tech into some kind of God. I am total skeptic on religion, but also finds a lot of the Transhuman movement o be total nonsense. THe Dems should heavily opulicise Muak's beleifs.
 
zooterkin said:
It bothers that Moorcock (or his editor) doesn't know how to spell Tolkien.
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I'm also puzzled by why Moorcock thinks Tolkien's work is Utopian. What on earth was he reading? Other than the fact that Tolkien is undoubtedly a Christian writer (and it's not clear to me why that's even a bad thing), I can't recognize anything of the actual Tolkien in Moorcock's description of his work. Crypto-Stalinist? What? And he's not even internally consistent in his criticism. You can't be both a Stalinist and a defender of "bourgois virtues". I don't think I've read any Heinlein books so I can't say how well his criticism applies there, but in regards to Tolkien I think he widely misses the mark.
 
Putin says Donald must go harder on Europe and Ukraine, must move faster and won’t meet with Donalf until he' is ready for serious results
Also the cause of the war is Europe who are to blame for what is happening

I’m surprised by Trump’s restraint toward allies who behaved rudely, The U.S. is working with European allies on Ukraine to reach solutions acceptable to both sides. It’s not an easy task.
When Trump was a candidate, he spoke about resolving the Ukraine crisis quickly, but after becoming president and receiving more information, his position changed.
I haven’t seen Donald in a long time. We don’t have a close relationship, but during his presidency, we met and discussed U.S.-Russia relations, I’d gladly meet him again today.
I think he would too, it was clear from our phone call. But just meeting for coffee isn’t enough, our teams need to prepare serious issues that matter to both Russia and the U.S.
There are many issues where both the U.S. and Russia are involved.
Of course, Ukraine remains our top priority. It’s natural, Trump started receiving real information, and it changed his approach. That takes time. I want to meet, but the meeting must be prepared to bring real results.
Trump was accused of ties to Russia, dragged through courts, nothing was proven because nothing happened.
Meanwhile, European leaders openly interfered in the U.S. election, even insulting a candidate. We had our sympathies but didn’t interfere.
We don’t speculate on Euro-Atlantic relations, but Europe, as U.S. allies, is to blame for what’s happening.
They dragged him through courts, accused him of ties to Russia, while every European leader directly interfered in the U.S. election.
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First section of video interview here
https://twitter.com/x/status/1892254266368159808
 
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Planigale said:
Most of Europe had conscription until recently and some countries still do. The UK was the exception in having a volunteer army and using it. The French of course had the foreign legion and have been fairly active. So I think for much of Europe returning to a Swiss or Norwegian model of conscription and being able to rapidly arm a large citizen army would be easy. I am sure there are sims for fighting drones, just recruit the top teens into weekend drone warriors. Europe can make all the weapons it needs, aircraft, tanks, artillery, missiles. What I think has been emphasised is the need for having large and secure and distributed stocks of munitions.
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I know that at least in the case of Switzerland the terrain is suitable for static defense, which requires less training than mobile warfare. Whether citizen-soldiers could be trained sufficiently to engage in tank warfare as would occur in Germany or Poland is questionable (at least to this non-soldier).
 
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