Coffeesforclosers

Anyone who refers to people they disagree with as "The Left" or "The Right" is waving a big, red flag. It's warning you that their primary identity is political, and I'm ***** sick of the politics of part of the country trying to conquer the other part through the ballot box and pooping on the constitution.

Sounds like a great idea.

Yeah, for whatever reason, it's now ok for the Alt Right to sound like whiny college liberals. There is no right or wrong, it's all just scams by the military-industrial complex! Followed by a lot of SAT word salad so they come off edumucated and refined. Because Cynicism has replaced real problem-solving. In other news, Putin shocked the world by saying absolutely nothing new or escalatory during his May 9th address. I'm not being sarcastic about Putin for once. Fredo is still smart and he still wants respect. Now I am. Russia is openly fortifying Ukraine's border with Kursk Oblast, on account of they're afraid Ukraine may decide to counter-invade and seize Russian cities as bargaining chips.

Good. You've always got to be careful about clips like this though, as reassuring as they are. I've got more than a feeling that Ukrainian losses are higher than they let on. It's all anecdotal though. Rolling Stone Reported on a Ukrainian Marine unit that's been in contact since Day 1. They've taken a real beating. Ukrainian Territorial Defense Units were thrown into the defense of Kyiv with little to no training. Some Volunteers were simply handed gear and deployed. Those units must have suffered terrible losses if they were attacked by Russia tank/mechanized units, or tried to do anything other than hold the places they were deployed. Luckily they had Russian incompetence and support from Ukraine's regular army units, that we now know are much better than anybody thought, but still.

Lots of stuff floating around now, so take your pick what you want to believe. It looks like the Russians are still stalled out on all their attacks intended to collapse or encircle Ukraine's position in the east. Kreminna fell early but they haven't been able to push much past it or the nearby towns. The attack south from Izyum was looking very dangerous for a week but has also stalled out, creating a long salient running north-south. Russian and Ukrainian attacks around Kherson and elsewhere have traded ground without changing much. The Ukrainians have made some gains around Mikolaiyiv. That's good news, as Mikolaiyiv guards Odessa and is a springboard to attack Kherson. Real gains though are being made by Ukraine in the north. They've almost cleared the Russians out of tube artillery range of the city of Kharkiv. They're also pushing west from Kharkiv to threaten one of the trunk supply routes to Izyum. Kharkiv contains one of Ukraine's most modern tank factories. Who knows what kind of shape it's in, but they'll need that facility up and running and safe. Finally, there's now reports of very heavy fighting quite close to Izyum, due east and due west of the city. It's all heat mapping stuff, so it could be combat, or it could just be artillery. But if Izyum is isolated or even if it's taken, all Russian forces south of it are encircled. So in a nutshell, Russia is still stalled for the time being, and can't stop Ukraine's counterattack around Kharkiv. The Kharkiv counterattack could develop into something very bad for the Russians, but who knows. Something very, very bad for the Russians could be happening around Izyum, but the info isn't there to say one way or the other.

So why isn't this exception in every single abortion prohibiting law?

So the war itself is the real evil, and the US shouldn't do anything that prolongs the war, because it's just a sign of warmongers continuing influence of the US? I'm assuming you're not American because not many people in my country refer to it as the "US-Administration". Nothing to do with your argument, just an observation.

Ok, so what's your point though, given the current situation?

Now that is a real piece of work, assuming of course it's true and everything works out like that. For everyone that isn't going to read Tibs tweet thread. The UK is supplying very advanced anti ship missiles that can strike Russian warships at anchor in Sebastopol. Since the Moskva was sunk, and the Turks closed off the Bosporus to warships, the remaining Russian vessels can't defend themselves from missiles. Meaning they can no longer blockade the port of Odessa. Meaning if NATO wanted to, they could escort Ukrainian grain shipments along coastal and west black sea routes. This would provide huge amounts of food back to global supply chains, meaning drastic price relief for all of Africa, and huge revenues for Ukraine. There's a few places where this could all go wrong, but it's a neat idea with a lot of upside for a lot of innocent people.

The facts are there, you've just got sift through the BS. Which includes stuff you very much might want to agree with. As for whatever the media is saying, the only bits I see are what gets posted on this thread. If I watch news, I watch PBS.

Yeah, it is. Along with the three NE SB wins where the other team scored 24+ points. Or maybe it was Belichick who got Vinatieri into FG range?

Except he has outside of NE without either of those guys?

Yup. I think it's safe to say that everyone in this thread hopes Ukraine is doing as well as they're telling us they're doing.

Russia's said it over and over again. They don't want peace, they want to win. For them, winning is erasing Ukraine and Ukrainians from the history books through torture, murder, reeducation and deportation. Ukraine's offered concessions for peace, Russia has rejected them all. Zelensky called Putin personally the day before the invasion because he thought it was a bluff and wanted to negotiate more. Putin didn't pick up the phone. One side wants to annihilate the other side, and says so repeatedly. What I don't understand are people saying "well they really should find common ground and wrap this thing up". Great, what's the common ground between a free country vs. we're going to destroy you utterly and have fun doing it?

So far as new states go...you could do worse... Hopefully most of that gets paid with seized assets from Putin-friendly oligarchs.

How?

Revisiting this exchange, let's not go crazy and think this shows some kind of critical fault line in Russian society based on the war. But it's where Russian conservatism has jumped the shark from conservatism to fascism. Old dude didn't get all those medals, ribbons and white hair delivering pizza. Still, young guy in the slick network gettup jumps right down his throat because he might be telling the naked emperor that he's naked. And the emperor can never be naked because that's the party line and you tow the party line.

FWIW, I think that's exactly what they mean too.

The egghead screaming at the guy with all the medals is trying so hard to look like Tucker Carlson.

Not a day goes by without Russia crying wolf about their nuclear arsenal. Whenever they start fantasizing about nuking all their enemies, what I hear is Fredo is smart and he wants respect.

Yup. This war has me reading a lot of stuff, re-reading a lot of stuff with new perspective...and if you asked my woman, reading way too much about Soviet era weapons systems. Doesn't help one of my coworkers is a Tanker in the Reserves.

Hooooo boy yeah. Russia uses 3 man tank crews and replace the loader crewman with an automatic loading system. The automatic loader stores the ammunition in a "carousel" around the turret ring, instead of a sealed off compartment in the back of the turret. So as a Russian tank fires, the carousel clicks around like a cylinder in a revolver. It's a great idea for keeping your tanks small and your crew sizes small, but the crew is also sitting in the middle of a ring of 125 mm shells if the tank gets hit. The Soviets wanted smaller, lighter tanks to keep them cheap and mobile. They figured in a WWIII type scenario, getting there first, with the most and the biggest guns trumped ergonomics and crew survivability.

*Clutches Pearls*. How dare Joe Biden escalate against a country whose only policy is escalation! Cooler heads need to come together, and tell other people to give up their land and liberty so we can be safe! My lord the Federalist author is happy to turn over Ukrainian civilians for rape, torture, murder and "reeducation", but for the love of God don't arm them, people might get killed and Russia might get angry! It's perfectly alright to feed Ukrainians into Russia's police dungeons, filtration camps and mass graves if it leads to peace, but for them to die fighting their would-be conquerors is some kind of moral swamp we have to climb out of? What a joke.

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them"-Sir Arthur Harris "There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare"-Sun Tzu Man, all those deals full of Ukrainian concessions that Russia left on the table a month ago so they could get their Short Victorious War...