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956 Worldwide

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Everything posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. They’ve been mostly fantastic since 2022 but there needs to be a sober assessment of how we got here. Those leaders were in the Oval Office pressing and flattering an American mediocrity to do the thing that (for once) is both right and in our interest. It’s embarrassing to be here. The flip side of this is that a continent of close to 500 million, with an advanced and larger economy than the U.S., two declared nuclear powers, and a border with Russia is in the pathetic position of needing the United States to deal firmly with Russia in defense of a European neighbor. There have been islands of clear-headedness but prior generations of German, French, and Italian leaders smirked down their noses at the Poles and Balts while they pursued gas deals and feckless aid-based diplomacy. They got high off their own supply; the EU really is a garden but they came to believe they could make the rest of the world one too and neglected good walls, fences, traps, and weed killers. It is my belief that Merkel will go down as the most disastrous German chancellor except for that one guy. She could have gotten with the program and let Ukraine and Georgia join NATO in 2008 when Russia was weak. She could have torn up the Nordstream 2 deal and kept her nuclear plants running. She could have used her formidable role to push Europe to invest in defense and cohesion. She could have done literally anything aside from letting Russia solve its Syria adventure by flooding Europe with migrants that Russia then weaponized to empower the AfD. She did none of that and did so in the most obnoxious, smug, self-satisfied, moralizing way possible. And all the while let partners engage in feckless nouveau-Ostpolitik while laying down cover for people like Berlusconi to pursue less noble engagements with the Russians. So yeah, I celebrate their coming even at the eleventh hour and am beyond furious at our government. But they got themselves here.
  2. DJT rules out American ground forces but leaves open the idea of American air policing post-war. This is not at all a terrible proposal and outcome. I was a firm advocate of a NATO air-policing and no-fly declaration which should have been spun up quickly in January 2022 or December 2021. As awful as this admin has been; the previous one suffered from chronic “crisis management” syndrome instead of crisis solutions. https://www.twz.com/air/no-u-s-peacekeeping-forces-on-the-ground-in-ukraine-air-support-possible-trump
  3. lol, he really does just do what the last person he talked to suggested. This is not as surprising as it seems on its face. Bears remembering that Trump doesn’t really have any personal affinity for anyone. He’s also gotten really impatient on this and the article hints the EU leaders told him that Orban’s intransigence on the EU is making it harder for Europe to take ownership of the issue. There are lots of ideologues in the U.S. foreign policy establishment who do genuinely align with Orban and see him as a model. They must be super pissed off right now.
  4. Link in the tweet thread. Looks like Susie Wiles is having another go at getting Loomer out of Trump’s orbit. The first was when Trump staff told Laura that because of Bill Maher’s comments, they needed her not to fly with him. Laura then sued Maher and gave these embarrassing depositions.
  5. Lavrov (who, it bears repeating, used to be a respected and formidable diplomat) comes screaming in with a bucket of cold water. The last point is the most succinct description of Russia’s position yet laid out: Ukraine loses its right to independence if it actually behaves independently.
  6. Amateur fight clubs are incredibly stupid and it’s also just play-acting at being a badass. The gulf between people who have had even a little training and those who haven’t is a chasm. I did some years of amateur boxing in junior high and high school and our dorm started one my freshman year (this was on the heels of the movie). I showed up, spent three fights (actually just a round each) lightly pummeling guys who had never worked a bag, and then never came back. It’s the same kind of “fun” a decent HS chess player would have playing against me, who has occasionally pulled out a board with friends— not fun at all. The risk to untrained people who can’t protect themselves is real and the “club” ultimately got stopped when a bad head injury happened. The thing is that most real state colleges all have MMA clubs, BJJ clubs, boxing clubs. You can go do it for real and find out exactly how badass you aren’t while actually learning something! No one is stopping you!
  7. I don’t even what to imagine what kind of 18 year old boy sees that photo and says “thars the place for me.” This place has to be overwhelmingly dudes, right?
  8. Watch out our you’ll catch hands from those hard-asses.
  9. Ushakov said the call between Trump and Putin was “frank” (read: the Russians are pissed). Also, the Kremlin is currently not on board with a presidential level meeting with the Ukrainians (this is for sure something they want to dangle in front of Trump to try and get more concessions). Today’s meeting went as well as could be expected for Ukraine. But it bears remembering that all of this fuss and ego stroking is being done to try and persuade the American president to support American national interests and our Allies.
  10. “Co-Deputy Director.” Assistant TO the Regional Manager? This is likely based on a need to have some actual management so Bongino can tweet and Kash can cosplay UFC in Vegas.
  11. Europe will buy 100 billion in American arms for Ukraine as a sweetener for security guarantees. Also, they will partner with us to build drones with the Ukrainians. Not yet a done deal it seems but part of Ukraine’s proposal.
  12. Crimea is not currently achievable by military means, but it’s important that Ukraine not formally surrender it. Putin won’t last forever. Even if it’s a permanent Cyprus-type division it’s very important that Ukraine not surrender its formal claim to Russia and for the world to maintain baseline sanctions as long as Russia is there.
  13. They don’t have any regard for the U.S. Constitution or view it as binding and so they can’t imagine anyone else having high regard for their own constitution. Theory of mind problem. It pervades the entire Ukraine issue. Trump can’t imagine bravely fighting a stronger enemy on principle and patriotism and so he intuits that there must be some devious personal reason Zelenskyy and Ukrainians are doing so.
  14. The Russians don’t even need to invest in information warfare anymore because Putin can just incept things into Trump’s brain and get him to start flailing around insanely.
  15. This is pretty much every “street” fight. They almost never make it past a minute; someone gets knocked out, other people intervene, or people decide they’ve had enough (usually after getting knocked down). Fighting another person is probably the most physically and mentally exhausting thing a human can do and that’s why even people who can do it very well for a living need a break and reset every 3-5 minutes. Exception is when you see people getting kicked or stomped when they’re in a bad position and that means it’s not a fight anymore, it’s attempted murder.
  16. Really? I can’t find anything at all offensive about the Troy Davis-era set, and in fact think they are pretty good. The monochrome look from the 2000s and the big leg stripes was for sure not as good.
  17. My love for these videos is unlimited. Almost everyone in them is terrible at fighting and winning makes you look almost as undignified as losing. Polished floor fisticuffs are a classic of the genre.
  18. Posted on another thread, but Rutte, Stubb, and Meloni are Trump whisperers and hopefully they will keep things in between the lines. Personal rapport and the last meeting he has go a long way with DJT. Also, with that many heavies in the room there hopefully won’t be a need for JD.
  19. KU’s “Whitehawk” alternate is pretty good work from adidas. Love the font and numbering, and the old Jayhawk. I’d rather see it on a blue helmet.
  20. No, that’s the amazing thing is it’s all Ukrainian territory they are talking about. Russia is prepared (allegedly) to move out of of parts of occupied Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts in exchange for Kyiv handing over parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that Russia is currently around 1k men per day trying to capture. The analogy here is that someone who stole your electronics and guns is now offering to give you back your own TV in exchange for some of your wife’s jewelry that he didn’t manage to steal yet. Media need to stop using the Russian and Trump framing.
  21. Iowa State gets what I think is overall an upgrade. Better: Numbers and stripes; color on color is hard to do right and the white with accents pops. The stripes on the sleeves and helmets are a good call-back to 1990s no-nonsense looks; there are some real pro football vibes here in a good way. Red on white and white on red is a good classic, contrasting look so hopefully no color rush stuff. OK: I don’t like small word marks; either make it integral to the jersey or leave it off (preferable). The script “Cyclones” is simply fine here and is better than the “I State” logo. I kind of miss the Whirly Bird and think it could work well here as college football should be fun.
  22. This may be a hot and unexpected take from me but it was appropriate in 2000 to take a pragmatic but firm and principled approach to Putin to see what could be accomplished. And in some ways this happened, Putin did attempt to make a half-hearted pivot West and position Russia as a GWOT partner and we did get stuff out of it. A lot of people forget how key the Russia facilitated Northern Distribution Network was to sustaining operations in Afghanistan all the way through the mid-teens. It was never on the table for him to be a democrat. What happened is that we fell down on the “pragmatic and firm” part in a lot of ways and Putin cannily exploited us by trying to make everything purely an issue of pragmatism. We also scored some own goals by blundering into foreign adventures where Russia could make itself either helpful or harmful at relatively low cost (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iraq fallout). But even worse we had a bipartisan series of leaders who allowed him to do what he does everywhere: turn Russia relations into a political issue instead of a national security issue. Russia and how the United States relates to it have been important campaign issues since 2012, with the GOP and Dems switching sides based on how Putin wanted them to. And even before that, we had the very stupid and political reset button whipped out by HRC for a photo-op with Lavrov; thus forcing Obama into either an admission of failure or to keep fucking the chicken long past the point of enjoyment. This was an own goal long after GWB came around to McCain’s view; and then in 2012 you had Obama gleefully pretending like Russia was still a potential partner. This is all incredibly stupid. Russia should never be an issue in American elections; Russia is a solved but difficult problem that we keep trying to find different solutions for. Only Putin wins when Russia takes up this much oxygen in internal political discussions and its truly a grand strategic masterclass that he has put on by keeping a declining and brittle Russia on the front burner.
  23. It’s really fucking embarrassing that an official U.S. negotiator would try to tell the American people that he got Putin to consider passing a law making it illegal for Russia to attack Ukraine. It was illegal the first time under Russian and international law!
  24. This is a really great lineup for Team Zelenskyy though. Stubb, Rutte, and Meloni are Trump whisperers.
  25. Today Rubio ruled out new sanctions on the morning shows, saying that they would upset the potential peace deal. I’m increasingly convinced that the two presidents are colluding on negotiations charades and that putting off new sanctions is the point.
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