Politics

[Scott CWO]

This all started with facts you chose to ignore several U.S. refineries are dependent on Canadian crude it’s a fact they are otherwise landlocked and not configured to handle any other form of crude. The U.S. buys that crude at below market value yet you somehow think you could simply replace that on the open market? If the tariff war proceeds and Canada pipes oil to the coast the U.S. looses both production and revenue that you are dependent on. Could well be a double blow because the likely buyer waiting in the wings is china any deal where china gain revenue and product while the u.s. looses revenue and product should be pretty self explanatory as bad yet you still hold the U.S. isn’t dependent on Canadian product?

But what the hell do I know I’m still wet behind the ears.

It’s useless to debate @BSO Dave. He knows EVERYTHING. Just ask him. Lol.

 

[Pondoro]

So..where is NATO right now..? Lets say the russians invade one of the baltic states tomorrow..to test NATO/USA..will article 5 be effected..?

Will Trump send troops according to article 5..? I doubt it.

 

[Field28]

We are allowed to be critical of our own government, Europe and Russia at the same time. Nobody is as clean as the driven snow in this whole mess!

Just because I don't believe that funding this doesn't solve anything only exacerbates it doesn't make me a Russian apologist or agent. The only thing I like about Putin is that he had a female black lab at one time. Hell, I despise Russian strippers, they may look hot but they're cold as Siberia!

All jokes aside, this European crap goes back centuries, blood feud that goes back to the barbarian horde times. It's one of the reasons that Europe's best and brightest crossed the Atlantic and built America!

I have European fatigue, if we were invaded, I seriously doubt they would come to our aid. They are the little brother that picks a fight with a bigger kid and we the big brother have to come to their rescue. They criticize us and look down on OUR people! Not too mention that most of the European countries have become systems of Neo Feudalism, nothing that we should want here.

Europe has far bigger problems than Russia at the moment. They are no longer the Free World and are rapidly becoming the Third World.

 

[Pondoro]

Europe has far bigger problems than Russia at the moment. They are no longer the Free World and are rapidly becoming the Third World.

Care to elaborate on that..?

 

[mutedblade]

Care to elaborate on that..?

Just a guess but I’m gonna go with an invasion of Muslims that have no intention of integrating into society. Rape, murder, the death of free speech?Any of those ring a bell? Keep spending all that money to fund your own destruction instead of building your defenses.

 

[ActionBob]

To me, Ukraine signs a minerals deal (makes Trump look good), in return the USA provides as much material and aid (including intelligence) as Ukraine needs and tells Russia to come to the table when they are realistic.

I don't think you are all that far off from what Trump is trying to get done. The huge difference of course is that he is our President and is in a position to get it done.

 

[Pondoro]

Just a guess but I’m gonna go with an invasion of Muslims that have no intention of integrating into society. Rape, murder, the death of free speech?Any of those ring a bell? Keep spending all that money to fund your own destruction instead of building your defenses.

And the crime rates are much lower in USA..? No racial tensions..?

 

[ActionBob]

And the crime rates are much lower in USA..? No racial tensions..?

Yea we are still trying to recover from our Obama legacy and the huge boost it got from the disastrous 4 years of Biden.

Thank God the Reagan policies had such long legs.

 

[ActionBob]

It’s useless to debate @BSO Dave. He knows EVERYTHING. Just ask him. Lol.

Hey I have found common ground with him at least twice! Not easy but it is possible

 

[1dirthawker]

To me, Ukraine signs a minerals deal (makes Trump look good), in return the USA provides as much material and aid (including intelligence) as Ukraine needs and tells Russia to come to the table when they are realistic.

i hope more people weigh in, but, i pretty much think you are right. it also seems to me that is what trump was poised to do. zelinsky supposedly (according to several news sources) had already agreed to the deal (more than once) and for some reason backed out.

like i tried to get across, i am in no way a world diplomat. but, i think the deal @Tanks posited makes sense at this point and that was what was on the table yesterday. maybe emotions just got the best of everyone, i thought they were going to go behind closed doors and make up and settle it, hmmm, was i wrong.

 

[skydiver386]

I've been a consistent supporter of Trumps policies, but this one is his fault, not Ukraine or Zelenski's.

The agreement gives the U.S. a 50 percent stake in revenue without obligating our nation to any Ukrainian security guarantees beyond being able to protect our economic stake.

American civilians on the ground operating a pit mine is Trumps idea of security for Ukraine?

As soon as Trump is out of office, and Putin rebuilds his military, the war will start again. The paper this agreement is written on won't even make good toilet paper.

ALL of the pressure should be on Putin. His Army attacked Ukraine. His Army is in tatters, he has no tank reserves left, no towed or self propelled artillery left, his Infantry is so depleted he has to beg North Korea for bodies to send into the meat grinder.

Now Trump accuses Ukraine of starting the war? Blames the victim for standing up to a bully?

If put in Zelenski's shoes, I'd have told Trump to pound sand. With friends like that, who needs enemies.

 

[Datchew]

Hopefully you stretched and did some deep knee bends, because that's the most impressive reach I've seen in quite a while.

Stalin has been dead since 1953.
And Duranty's work was 93 years ago.

So your gotcha moment, which trimmed my actual statement and thus... the key point (that the NYT has a history rife with propaganda,) is all because I said Stalin instead of Russia.

Got it. Real zinger. You seem to then by implication be OK with the fact that the NYT intentionally suppressed the Ukraine holodomor.
Shall we expand on their involvement with the 3rd reich (sp?) as Hitler was coming to power?
Maybe there's a misspelling in there you can pounce upon or something.

Give me a break.

 

[ActionBob]

@Just Gina and I just sat through that whole video of the meeting with Zelinsky, Trump, Vance, Rubio.... I have my impressions based on thinking that I can comprehend a bit of the way Trump approaches issues. His life work has been making deals. He sees this Ukraine minerals deal as the very Base and most important first step of a peace deal. That was the most important big picture thing to him. He already has (had) a picture in his mind of how that plays out long term. He sees good business and prosperity, shared prosperity, as the basis to work from and as the ultimate solution.

It gets very frustrating to a business man who is pursuing the big picture deal when the minions want to pick apart all the irritating little details he just knows will work themselves out. He wants to get the deal done and then work together to make it happen versus people who want to keep looking backwards instead of forwards and dwell on all their negativity as they strive to find ways it cannot work instead of making it work.

You could just watch Trump turning from pale orange to bright red! I really feel for Trump in this. Probably even more for Rubio who was promised it was a done deal.

And Trump is taking the very realistic position that he wants to be a mediator. And therefore cannot come out on one side or the other. If you have ever been in a mediated business dispute you could understand this... No way are you going to negotiate in good faith if you feel the mediator is against you.

The same people who want to call Trump a dictator are the ones criticizing him for trying to take a mediator role instead of a dictator role.

 

[Datchew]

After reading some of the comments, it seems some members believe if you criticize Zelensky and or Ukraine in any way or do not want to give them the entire riches of the U.S. you are Putin's best friend, a KGB agent or actively smuggling weapons to Russia

Bullseye

 

[Neophyte]

Draw down isn't free. All of that equipment has a value that has to be charged against the an appropriation. All that equipment has to be prepped, inspected, and made combat ready which also has to be charged. Finally, it has to be shipped, and that too has to be charged against an appropriation. For over six months, thanks to the republican congress, there was no appropriation against which those costs could be charged

Good.
I DO thank the Republican Congress. I’m tired of bailing out Europe, war, and debt. Until Russia and China are at the Mexican or Canadian border I don’t really give a flying flip in a rolling donut what or whom they fornicate with.

 

[Neophyte]

My grandfather was a US Marine POW in WWII for 3.5 years. Taken in the Phillipines and freedom after VJ.
He depised the Jananese....refused any in his family ro purchase a Japanese car, buy Japanese, and refused a trip by their government in the 90s.

I say this, because Japan is a great ally of the US now after countless horrific acts.

There is hope that relationships change and can be mended and alliances formed when the ones that did evil and let it control them no longer make the decisions. Some will take much longer.

We don't forget the past, rather learn and better ourselves from it.

My Dad was in WWII and Mom Dismantled bombs in Dothan, Alabama during WWII.

Until she died at age 99 she hated the japs. I certainly understand your grandfather’s sentiment. Dad refused to eat rice until the day he died. Might be because he had to eat captured jap rice on some of his island forays between 1941 and 1945.

 

[Datchew]

We are allowed to be critical of our own government, Europe and Russia at the same time. Nobody is as clean as the driven snow in this whole mess!

Just because I don't believe that funding this doesn't solve anything only exacerbates it doesn't make me a Russian apologist or agent. The only thing I like about Putin is that he had a female black lab at one time. Hell, I despise Russian strippers, they may look hot but they're cold as Siberia!

All jokes aside, this European crap goes back centuries, blood feud that goes back to the barbarian horde times. It's one of the reasons that Europe's best and brightest crossed the Atlantic and built America!

I have European fatigue, if we were invaded, I seriously doubt they would come to our aid. They are the little brother that picks a fight with a bigger kid and we the big brother have to come to their rescue. They criticize us and look down on OUR people! Not too mention that most of the European countries have become systems of Neo Feudalism, nothing that we should want here.

Europe has far bigger problems than Russia at the moment. They are no longer the Free World and are rapidly becoming the Third World.

Welcome to the very small group of people here that (at least) attempt to view these things from an objective basis.

You don't get to be in the clique if you truly call balls and strikes.

Prepare for attack from both sides.

 

[Pondoro]

@Just Gina and I just sat through that whole video of the meeting with Zelinsky, Trump, Vance, Rubio.... I have my impressions based on thinking that I can comprehend a bit of the way Trump approaches issues. His life work has been making deals. He sees this Ukraine minerals deal as the very Base and most important first step of a peace deal. That was the most important big picture thing to him. He already has (had) a picture in his mind of how that plays out long term. He sees good business and prosperity, shared prosperity, as the basis to work from and as the ultimate solution.

It gets very frustrating to a business man who is pursuing the big picture deal when the minions want to pick apart all the irritating little details he just knows will work themselves out. He wants to get the deal done and then work together to make it happen versus people who want to keep looking backwards instead of forwards and dwell on all their negativity as they strive to find ways it cannot work instead of making it work.

You could just watch Trump turning from pale orange to bright red! I really feel for Trump in this. Probably even more for Rubio who was promised it was a done deal.

And Trump is taking the very realistic position that he wants to be a mediator. And therefore cannot come out on one side or the other. If you have ever been in a mediated business dispute you could understand this... No way are you going to negotiate in good faith if you feel the mediator is against you.

The same people who want to call Trump a dictator are the ones criticizing him for trying to take a mediator role instead of a dictator role.

The answer here lies within your comment. Trump now has the role as a statesman and President...he is not conducting a business deal. He mixes both roles together..

Trump cannot run the country and the foreign policy as if he still is running a business corporation.

I am afraid he will bang his head in the wall when dealing with Russia

 

[TTundra]

@Just Gina and I just sat through that whole video of the meeting with Zelinsky, Trump, Vance, Rubio.... I have my impressions based on thinking that I can comprehend a bit of the way Trump approaches issues. His life work has been making deals. He sees this Ukraine minerals deal as the very Base and most important first step of a peace deal. That was the most important big picture thing to him. He already has (had) a picture in his mind of how that plays out long term. He sees good business and prosperity, shared prosperity, as the basis to work from and as the ultimate solution.

It gets very frustrating to a business man who is pursuing the big picture deal when the minions want to pick apart all the irritating little details he just knows will work themselves out. He wants to get the deal done and then work together to make it happen versus people who want to keep looking backwards instead of forwards and dwell on all their negativity as they strive to find ways it cannot work instead of making it work.

You could just watch Trump turning from pale orange to bright red! I really feel for Trump in this. Probably even more for Rubio who was promised it was a done deal.

And Trump is taking the very realistic position that he wants to be a mediator. And therefore cannot come out on one side or the other. If you have ever been in a mediated business dispute you could understand this... No way are you going to negotiate in good faith if you feel the mediator is against you.

The same people who want to call Trump a dictator are the ones criticizing him for trying to take a mediator role instead of a dictator role.

Perfectly articulated @ActionBob !
I try to look at this situation from a pragmatic business approach as is my style to remove emotion (which is near impossible) but far too many (here included) assume you to be either a Putin crony or war hawk. Very little middle ground to get goals accomplished.

 

[rigbymauser]

We are allowed to be critical of our own government, Europe and Russia at the same time. Nobody is as clean as the driven snow in this whole mess!

Just because I don't believe that funding this doesn't solve anything only exacerbates it doesn't make me a Russian apologist or agent. The only thing I like about Putin is that he had a female black lab at one time. Hell, I despise Russian strippers, they may look hot but they're cold as Siberia!

All jokes aside, this European crap goes back centuries, blood feud that goes back to the barbarian horde times. It's one of the reasons that Europe's best and brightest crossed the Atlantic and built America!

I have European fatigue, if we were invaded, I seriously doubt they would come to our aid. They are the little brother that picks a fight with a bigger kid and we the big brother have to come to their rescue. They criticize us and look down on OUR people! Not too mention that most of the European countries have become systems of Neo Feudali

We are allowed to be critical of our own government, Europe and Russia at the same time. Nobody is as clean as the driven snow in this whole mess!

Just because I don't believe that funding this doesn't solve anything only exacerbates it doesn't make me a Russian apologist or agent. The only thing I like about Putin is that he had a female black lab at one time. Hell, I despise Russian strippers, they may look hot but they're cold as Siberia!

All jokes aside, this European crap goes back centuries, blood feud that goes back to the barbarian horde times. It's one of the reasons that Europe's best and brightest crossed the Atlantic and built America!

I have European fatigue, if we were invaded, I seriously doubt they would come to our aid. They are the little brother that picks a fight with a bigger kid and we the big brother have to come to their rescue. They criticize us and look down on OUR people! Not too mention that most of the European countries have become systems of Neo Feudalism, nothing that we should want here.

Europe has far bigger problems than Russia at the moment. They are no longer the Free World and are rapidly becoming the Third World.

I am in awe with the wealth knowledge you share you must be meant for something bigger. Hope someone will see this.