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berlinerbaer

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Posts posted by berlinerbaer

  1. On 8/10/2022 at 8:19 AM, GopherRock said:

    Ilhan Omar's problem was that she didn't get her core areas of support out. Major miscalculation.

    And she wasn't the only incumbent to sweat out a photo finish last night. Robin Vos, speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and brainchild of the last 12 years of Republican rule in Wisconsin, nearly lost to a challenger who charged him with not being sufficiently anti-democratic.

     

     

    NSIAP, he just ended that state's investigation into the 2020 elections, hopefully crushing to the morale of the most MAGA Wisconsin voters.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/12/wisconsin-assembly-leader-axes-2020-election-investigation-00051512

    Quote

    Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has ended a controversial partisan review of the 2020 election, which he and GOP legislators had funded for the past year, days after Vos defeated a primary challenger.

     

  2. 5 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    V Corps headquarters will be in Poland and that’s about 650 soldiers.  There’s also going to be a Brigade Combat Team (approx. 4,500) in Romania.  So you’re off by a coupe tens of thousands.  I also don’t understand why we believe that having forward deployed units firmly integrated with our Allies in a potential theatre against one of our few competitors isn’t of benefit to us. 
     

    This conflict and our domestic problems are firmly intertwined and a bad outcome will lead to more, and more serious domestic problems down the road.  This is a revanchist, angry, flailing want to be Empire that wants to upset the order in our core security sphere: Europe, our largest trading partner and the other shore of our Transatlantic lake.  We call people who can focus on the big picture “statesmen.”  

    Here is the article linked in the Ukraine thread a few days back. Looks like it'll be about 20,000 spread throughout Europe, bringing the total to 100,000, on rotation. Mea culpa.

    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-nato-biden-madrid-jens-stoltenberg-de44b391b62aa3b9ccbd37ca12518f26

    Quote

    The dry language belied the dramatic shift under way as the U.S. prepares to keep 100,000 troops in Europe for the “foreseeable future,” up from 80,000 before the war in Ukraine began.

     

    Quote

    U.S. officials emphasized that the permanent basing applied only to headquarters units, not combat troops, and was therefore consistent with a 1997 agreement between NATO and Russia in which the alliance agreed not to permanently base combat troops in Eastern Europe as it aimed to build more constructive ties in the post-Cold War environment.

    The combat units Biden is sending to Romania and the Baltic region are on rotational deployments, rather than permanent assignment, to remain in compliance with that agreement.

     

  3. I'm all for Sweden and Finland joining. That sounds like organic NATO expansion and a real boost in financial and combat capability. I'm also in favor of arming the Ukrainians with pretty much whatever they want. It's a bargain compared to sending our guys over there.

    Speaking of which... we are now sending tens of thousands of troops to Poland permanently? Fuck that. Is NATO stronger or not? Could we fuck up Russia already as is or not? Weren't our European allies going to double their defense budgets? If we were asked to contribute that many, we should have said no and if we decided without asking then fuck us.

    Fact is, this conflict seems like an escape from our very real domestic problems for too many politicians (both sides) and, by the looks of it, too many normally liberal posters on this board (myself included). 

  4. 11 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

    Sigh, so is this shit ramping back up?  See a few people in the DT thread saying they tested positive. Wife is coming back from a conference in Aspen right now and saying she doesn’t feel good. 

    It's raging through the young population. It ran through my whole family a week ago after my kids brought it home from daycare. Nothing major, but holy shit this thing is contagious.

    Good news is that like 80% of America has now been inoculated one way or the other. That's why hospitalizations are fairly low and deaths are way down compared to prior waves. 

  5. 59 minutes ago, Satchel said:

    She’s gonna get smoked in November.

    Maybe. This seat is gerrymandered to be safe D and Vicente Gonzalez is a known commodity.

    Gonzalez' old seat next door (TX-15) is in real danger of flipping, however. It's one of the only competitive districts left in the state. The R candidate came within 4 points in 2020.

  6. All four of us are finally dealing with this. Vaxxed 6 yo son had it over the weekend and had a fever for 12 hours then a headache and chest pains the next day, then all good. 3 yo daughter got it Tuesday with a full blown fever for 24 hours, now lingering at 99 and feeling good. There has been an outbreak at daycare and here we are.

    That's when I knew I was fucked because there is no avoiding a 3 yo who insists on either climbing into your bed in the middle of the night or making you sleep upstairs with her. I tested positive this morning after being negative Tuesday night. Feels like a flu right now which isn't so bad. My wife has been complaining about her throat and headaches but she' doing the best out of all of us. We are both vaxxed and single-boosted. Time to hunker down for the weekend.

     

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  7. A political position that singlehandedly sets the House agenda, determines when votes can occur, and staffs committees - the second most powerful position in US politics - is prone to backroom deals and special interest. Who knew?

    Pelosi is no worse than Paul Ryan or John Boehner were. The role essentially requires a giant sign hovering overhead with an arrow pointing down below big red letters saying "I like favors, and stock. Or cash will do."

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  8. 5 hours ago, F250 said:

    Agree. This thread is more of a monument to upper middle class privilege than anything else.

    We get to talk about all of the countries we have visited for college, vacation and work while agreeing dropping a half a million dollars to move to another country is a good deal.

    Peak shitlib.

    So much this. Disturbing that some of you would rather move to Belize or somewhere else to be utterly surrounded by poverty.

    If you look white, are older, male, and in the top 10% economically, America is and always will be structurally built to support you regardless of the status of democracy or how hot it is. 

     

    6 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

    Curious about these natural advantages 

    Big oceans on both sides to keep the meanies out. A still-growing population that can support the elderly.

    Think about it. Europe may seem nice, but they are dependent on the outside for energy (Russia and ME), protection (US), and food. When there are global shocks, they always feel it more. I would rather have internal challenges to deal with than be under the thumb of a foreign power or have to worry about asshole neighbors.

    Besides, if America goes to shit, all the benefits of being American will go with it. Your dollars won't be worth that much anymore.

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  9. 12 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    The main problem with this theory is similar to theories about how the U.S. invaded Iraq for its oil.  The old saw about catching more flies with honey than vinegar applies.  If Russia’s primary interest here was to keep itself secure as Europe’s leading energy provider, tools such as corrupt networks in Ukraine and other forms of economic coercion would have been more successful and far cheaper. Russian firms could have easily been in place to control the development of these resources and integrate them into Russian energy networks. 
     

    Russian aims are not economic in nature, as evidenced by the fact that Putin embarked on an economically ruinous war that destroyed his biggest EU energy project— a scenario that was utterly predictable.  Unavoidable, even.  We need to look elsewhere for Russian motivation. 

    I think the economic arguments hold water considering coercion was working out just fine for Putin until his buddy in Kiev got the boot in 2014's uprising. One of the things Yanukovich was doing until then, IIRC, was putting development of the country's O&G infrastructure on ice.

  10. 53 minutes ago, Chopper said:

    Very fascinating article. The author is one of China's top foreign policy thinkers. Very prominent. He argues that Putin has inadvertently united the West, plus Japan, Australia, NZ and Taiwan, and boosted democracy. Really interesting - he argues that that China has a week or 2 to decide which side its future will be better with  -- democracies or the authoritarian side of the world. He argues that China is the only country in the world that can (and should) convince Putin to end the war.

    From the outside, it may look like China is distancing itself from Russia and choosing the West. Domestically, their media is parroting Russian propaganda, including the latest round of garbage about bioweapons. I don't know which way they've shifted over the last 3 weeks.

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  11. 8 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

    The Chinese disposition was always a poor match for communism. They are hyper capitalists at heart. That's just the culture. Hell, my grandmother would haggle with McDonald's worker at the mall to get a 10 cent discount on a hamburger. 

     

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  12. 49 minutes ago, The Ace of Aces said:

    I haven’t posted much about Putin himself so this is as god as time as any. 

    Vladimir Putin is no mastermind. He is clever and had great political instincts (until recently) but he’s not very smart. He does not think things through. He gets an idea, acts on it, and then figured out later how to manage the situation he created. His KGB training didn’t allow for thinking things through and the fact he was plucked out to be a leader was a little luck and a lot of happenstance and nothing really to do with his mindset.

    I know quite a few who have had to deal with him/his admin directly. They all say he’s not all that bright. 

    Wasn't there a State Department cable put out by Wikileaks that suggested after psych evaluation that Putin might have Asperger's? That would explain the very high competence in many areas and deficiencies elsewhere.

    It was the Pentagon, actually.

    Quote

    Both reports, the 2008 study of Putin and a 2011 analysis of Putin and then-President Dimitry Medvedev, cite Putin's physical difficulties as shaping his decision making and behavior. "His primary form of compensation is extreme control," which "is reflected in his decision style and how he governs," the report said.

    Military analysts first noticed Putin's movement patterns on Jan. 1, 2000, "in the first television footage ever seen of the then, newly appointed president of Russia," wrote Connors, who has been studying movement patterns for the Pentagon since 1996.

    Quote

    Medvedev, she wrote, is an "Action Man," who "is inclined to size up situations quickly and to do so in black and white terms, shunning subtler shades of gray."

    Putin, on the other hand, "has very different predilections," and "methodically cycles back to aspects of the problem facing him, continuing revising data to verify his research and confirm his priorities," the report said.

    U.S. officials should present "the information-craving" Putin with "meaty policy research and white papers," Connors recommended. "Putin the private decision maker cannot be expected to enter into public exchanges with others on information interpretation or a final course of action."

     

  13. 9 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    There’s a difference with this resistance and what was shown in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both of those were failures in occupation, which is a different sort of hurdle. 
     

    Not to mention they were projections of power halfway around the world. What we’re seeing in Ukraine from a logistics and competency perspective is the equivalent of the US military not being able to make advances after invading Mexico, right across the American border, while invading with built up forces from 3 sides in the north and south, plus making an amphibious landing. 
     

    This has just looked like a colossal logistics fuck up, not to mention a bewildering demonstration of a lack of air power, and a damnation of general troop training and support. 

    I agree. There is too much military competence spread around the world to make invasions successful. Only if the focus is narrow, which it certainly wasn't for us in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the looks of it the Russians bit of more than they could chew as well.

  14. 1 hour ago, Auto Driller said:

    China taking a big L on this one too. In addition to looking like a bunch of jackasses for having tacitly supported Russia in the lead up to the invasion, the world has now clearly seen that a smaller country can effectively resist a full scale invasion from a “super power”. Taiwan suddenly isn’t looking so vulnerable.

    Agree, but this is the second time the world has seen effective resistance against a superpower just in the last year.

  15. 12 hours ago, Trey3216 said:

    Show me where I said hydroxy and horse paste?  For one, it's hilarious that idiots were buying shit from Tractor Supply, but it's equally hilarious that fucktards like you don't acknowledget that Ivermectin has a 'for human use' version that's been used to treat other viruses for nearly a century.  India's case counts dropped precipitously after they started handing out packets with Ivermectin, Vitamin D, azythromicin and such.  I'm not saying I trust India's numbers per se, buy India does produce most of the medicines that we use in the US.  I'm also not saying that Ivermectin works, I wouldn't know, but some things together seemed to have worked for a lot of people, and that is 100% a fact.  Not to mention that Pfizer's new pill that will be hitting the markets fairly shortly is hilariously close in chemical composition to Ivermectin.  

    Not sure where you saw this, but it's plausible this combo was a winner in India as it could be in other developing countries, but not by directly treating Covid. It also would have much less success in this country due to overall greater health.

    Lots of people in India and elsewhere without proper sanitation have parasitic diseases. Worms cause all sorts of systemic havoc and can inhabit the body long-term by suppressing the immune system. Worms plus any viral illness is a really bad combination. To treat Covid it would make lots of sense to first get rid of the worms. Hence Ivermectin.

    I could see a broad spectrum antibiotic like azithromycin being useful for similar reasons. Even things like tooth abscesses are comorbidities that should be treated to increase the survival rates of Covid patients. Doctors shouldn't just be throwing around antibiotics, but last spring was an extraordinary circumstance, so why not? Worry about resistant germs later.

    Not sure about vitamin D but much of the world is chronically deficient so it can't hurt.

    tl;dr Throw that cocktail at your random developing world resident and watch their survivability skyrocket.

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