Putin losing his 'gas war' against Europe. Yale prof on Russia's hard-hit economy. (Page 4/4)
rinselberg FEB 23, 10:34 AM

quote
"Free democratic elections" was not what happened in 2020. Brandon stole it, when will you liberal leftists get that through your brainwashed minds?



Dat's some kind of "gaslighting"


It's "gaslighting" on a scale not seen in St Louis (where I was born) since the heyday of Gaslight Square in the 1960s

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 02-23-2023).]

williegoat FEB 23, 10:53 AM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:

Trump and his allies challenged the election results in court in various states. Judges ruled against almost every last one of Team Trump's 60 or so attempts to challenge the election results. In the one case (if memory serves me) where Team Trump got a favorable ruling from a judge, the number of popular votes at stake wasn't enough to change anything in the Electoral College vote count that determines the winning Presidential candidate.

If Trump were any kind of legitimate political leader, he would have told his supporters at this point—after losing all of his challenges in the courts—that they had to accept that Biden-Harris had won and were the legitimately elected President and Vice President. Trump would have told his supporters that they needed to work at the level of state governments and legislatures to change the way that the 2024 national elections (still ahead of us) would be conducted. Changes to the absentee or mail-in voting rules and procedures that Trump was constantly bitching about. Changes of any kind, to comport with Trump's ideas about how the 2024 national elections should be carried out, to redress all of his complaints about the 2020 national elections.

That was Trump's only legitimate way forward, as a political leader.

But Trump gave short shrift to that, preferring to aid and abet a series of election-related crimes, from the fake electors conspiracies to the violent assault on the Capitol Building on "January 6."


So what you are suggesting is that after endless accusations and investigations, if the courts say that there is "no there there", we should accept their conclusions and just let it be?
rinselberg FEB 23, 10:59 AM
I don't think I have to explain why "Not Guilty" verdicts or prosecutors' declinations or decisions to not bring charges are not the same as exonerations.

I don't think I should have to explain...

No justice system can provide perfect justice.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 02-23-2023).]

williegoat FEB 23, 11:24 AM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:

I don't think I have to explain why "Not Guilty" verdicts or prosecutors' declinations or decisions to not bring charges are not the same as exonerations.

I don't think I should have to explain...

No justice system can provide perfect justice.



So, what you are saying is that election fraud has not been disproved?
rinselberg FEB 23, 04:23 PM

quote
Originally posted by williegoat:
So, what you are saying is that election fraud has not been disproved?



Counting from the beginning of this forum topic or "thread"... Reply #27, which begins with "Trump and his allies ..."
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/...HTML/000602.html#p27

It's a very brief exposition from me, and it's canonical. It needs no additional explanation, and no further elaboration or enlargement. It's complete.

The concept of election fraud is a rabbit hole. It's not falsifiable, and so exists outside the realm of logical and evidence-based discourse.

I eschew it.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 02-23-2023).]

WonderBoy FEB 24, 08:58 PM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:



"Ukrainian Railways created ‘Rail Force One’ for surprise Biden visit"
Nick Augusteijn for RailTech(.com); February 21, 2023.
https://www.railtech.com/al...urprise-biden-visit/

Very brief report.

"Amtrak Joe"

A little "eye candy"...a small break from "heaviosity".

What's not to like?



But, I thought it wasn't a planned visit? It was a surprise. The air raid sirens were real. The marxi-pad media refering Brandon to Abe Lincoln. Brandon the Bravest president to enter an active warzone. Blah blah blah.

Surprise to who?

About the stories from "Amtrak Joe"?

quote
Amtrak at the time declined to commend on the accuracy of Biden’s statement.


Yeah, BullSh!t Joe, more like it.
williegoat FEB 24, 10:08 PM
How many countries does it take to qualify as a "world war"?

Putin cancels decree underpinning Moldova's sovereignty in separatist conflict

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President Vladimir Putin revoked on Tuesday a 2012 decree that in part underpinned Moldova's sovereignty in resolving the future of the Transdniestria region - a Moscow-backed separatist region which borders Ukraine and where Russia keeps troops.

The decree, which included a Moldova component, outlined Russia's foreign policy 11 years ago which assumed Moscow's closer relations with the European Union and the United States.


Moldova Extricates From Russian-Dominated Process of Negotiations on Transnistria

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The first move to disentangle from an externally imposed, potentially fatal diplomatic process is to change the semantics. Along with this move, the country—Moldova in this case—must assert the priority of its own interests over those who caught it in this trap—namely, Russia and its auxiliaries in the now 30-year-old Transnistria conflict-settlement process. Russia had designed this diplomatic process with its political objectives, organizational structure, ground rules and the attendant semantics in mind. This process foreordained either permanent partition or reunification under Russian control for Moldova.






Both songs have similar subject matter. The first, "The Dark Moldovan Girl" was written in the mid 20th century, but tells a tale from around 1918, of a young man who is talked into joining the army by a girl he meets in a field. The second is about being drafted, from around the time of the first Russian revolution.

[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 02-25-2023).]

cliffw FEB 25, 06:02 PM

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Originally posted by Patrick:
Gotta love online political comments (in a car forum no less)! It quickly distinguishes the rational from the deluded.





What are you trying to say ? Tell us what you really think.

This is the Politics and Religion subsection. Are the deluded not to have opinions ? Are they not allowed to comment ? Why do they get to vote ?

Gotta love every subsection of PFF. It quickly distinguishes the rational from the deluded. Especially Chat and Technical Discussions.



quote
Originally posted by Patrick:
Despite not being a District Attorney (but thanks for the compliment), I'm fully aware that this "IS the Politics & Religion section" of a car forum. And we all know that only the most astute unbiased political pundits seek out PFF to share their views.



Are you calling everybody here a moron ? Why are you here ?
Patrick FEB 25, 07:52 PM

quote
Originally posted by cliffw:

Tell us what you really think.



I did.


quote
Originally posted by cliffw:

This is the Politics and Religion subsection. Are the deluded not to have opinions ?



Sure, and those opinions are on full display here... all day, every day.


quote
Originally posted by cliffw:

Are you calling everybody here a moron ?



Absolutely not.
rinselberg MAR 02, 04:53 PM
There was an op-ed in today's New York Times that strikes me as clear-eyed and realistic realistic and clear-eyed.

"America Is In Over Its Head"
Thomas Meaney for the New York Times; March 2, 2023.
https://www.nytimes.com/202...ted-states-nato.html


quote
Mr. Meaney, a fellow at the Max Planck Society in Germany, writes regularly on American foreign policy and international relations.


He's suggesting that a reasonable way to end the war is to accept Russian sovereignty over that Donbas or Donbass area that includes the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk (where there's currently a lot of ground combat) and the Crimean peninsula (which Russia already controls) and the land bridge that would connect Russia directly with the Crimean peninsula, which I think has to include the formerly Ukrainian city of Mariupol, much of which is now in ruins.

These are the last three paragraphs:

quote
As it stands today, Ukraine’s economic future appears viable even without the territories currently occupied by Russia. Ukraine has not been turned into a landlocked country and it remains in control of seven of the eight oblasts with the highest G.D.P. per capita. Ukraine would risk jeopardizing this position in a counteroffensive. Paradoxically, continued fighting also serves some Russian interests: It allows Moscow more chances to pummel Ukraine into a de facto buffer state, making it an ever less attractive candidate for NATO and European Union membership.

The historian Stephen Kotkin recently argued that Ukrainians may be better off defining victory as accession to the European Union rather than a complete recapture of all Ukrainian territory. And yet, except for countries that were neutral during the Cold War, each historical case of E.U. accession has been preceded by membership in NATO, which since the 1990s has acted as a ratings agency in Europe, guaranteeing countries as safe for investment. This fact is hardly lost on the Ukrainian population: Polls (which have mostly excluded Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014) show that interest in the country’s joining NATO appears to have jumped since the start of the conflict.

Only Washington ultimately has the power to decide how much of Ukraine it wants to bring under its umbrella. The actual official reluctance to include Ukraine in NATO has rarely been clearer, while the public embrace of Kyiv has never been more florid. In the meantime, European leaders may soon find themselves in the unenviable position of convincing Ukrainians that access to the common market and a European Marshall Fund is a reasonable exchange for “complete victory.”


This echoes the temperament (if not the details) of what I was saying some weeks ago, on another thread. So this op-ed gives me a warm, rosy feeling of "validation".

Am I wrong?

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-02-2023).]