You have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Crimea was part of Ukraine. Biden had nothing to do with it, Trump encouraged them to go farther by recognizing Crimea as Russia to appease his benefactor, Putin…and historically Bush sr made the trilateral agreement essentially guaranteeing to protect Ukraine’s borders with US military power in exchange for nuclear deploliferation in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union in 92. Should we ignore the international treaty and destroy our reputation, making it impossible to make any international agreements at all? You likely think so as an honorless liar.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-trilateral-process-the-united-states-ukraine-russia-and-nuclear-weapons/

I know you don’t know the history, but that’s no excuse for making up nonsense.

Putin’s continuing expansionist policy has forced the hand of NATO to admit multiple countries that before the invasions weren’t even being considered, and make plans for admitting Ukraine, not the other way around you fool.
The waste is to throw away a victory for democracy and against a likely return to communist socialism just to hand Biden a loss…as if it were his war.

Oops this turned into a semi rant. But I am legitimately open to discussion here, and am curious to get your thoughts on a few points Bob. That is, IF you're willing to actually think about them beyond the level of repeating talking points.

I find it interesting how divergent the two overall "sides" are in this country, in terms of where they focus. None of the issues brought up in this video are really on the radar of most progressives, beyond being aware some on the right are talking about them. And I'm guessing a lot of the concerns progressives discuss rarely come up in your chosen media landscape. A lot of the issues in the video are largely off of my radar, and I have to wonder how you feel they should be addressed - like, actual proposed solutions rather than just complaining about / worrying about them.

We only dedicate one day to remember our fallen soldiers

How many should there be? Arguably we have more than one already: there's Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and it seems that Sept 11th is often used for the purpose as well.

I'd argue we should spend more time acknowledging and understanding the principals behind WHY our soldiers died in the various conflicts which caused them to fall in the first place. Let's make sure our citizenry appreciates what we collectively rejected in the Revolutionary war. Why it was important that we kept the country together rather than allowing the south to split off in the mid-1800s. Why we chose to honor our diplomatic agreements and support our allies in WW1. Why we fought against the countries and governments we did in WW2. What our goals were in Korea and Vietnam, and what lessons we learned from those conflicts and from the Cold War in general. Commemorating and remembering those we've lost absolutely matters, but if we're ONLY doing that while forgetting why they fought OR ignoring what we learned then we're doing them an equal or greater disservice. Remember that America was built on the idea of forming "a more perfect union" - not a perfect one, a MORE perfect one - a work in progress. We're striving towards an ideal, not assuming we're already there. Learning from our past successes, failures, and our struggles around both outcomes is vital. If our self-analysis is no deeper than hero worship we'll never make real progress towards that theoretical perfect union.

The only mask that's gonna save us is duct tape on their mouths

Yeah, sound medical advice and evidence-based science is terrifying. Better to shut up those whose words we dislike, because we're reactionary authoritarian babymen. I truly do not understand being more afraid of reasonable safety measures than of a virus which has been shown to cause serious harm in the short and long terms. The only reason this "masks = liberal / maskless = conservative" crap came about is because politics has devolved to the level of team sports in the US, and one party has chosen "the opposite of whatever our political opponents say" as their entire governing philosophy. (And yes, ONE party - research and understand the GOP's 2020 platform if you want to argue the point.) This video even seems to reach a reasonable conclusion at the end, while coming up just short of that final logical leap to "maybe I should question what the public faces of MY side have been claiming in this Us vs Them madness." Seriously - keep going friend, you're almost there! George Washington was 100% right in wanting to avoid political parties being a force in the US, and it makes me immensely sad that his fears came true.

Big oil runs the world / the only wars to get fought are with the countries who have natural resources they want

Solid point here, no sarcasm. The US military has long been a tool of our profit-driven form of "free market" imperialism. A really great way to combat this, specifically with an eye to ending Big Oil's goddamn death grip on our foreign policy goals, would be an aggressive implementation of renewable energy projects. Remember the space race? America can be an absolute beast at clever engineering solutions when we dedicate ourselves to it. Fuck the petrostates, we have the available land and resources to absolutely kick ass in the realms of solar and wind power, and be leaders in the the post-hydrocarbon reality. We can certainly agree on that, right Bob? Left / Right nonsense fully aside, I think any reasonable American can agree on at least two points: let's stop sending heaps of cash to buy oil off of the Saudis (etc), and Fuck Cancer.

But if a white man acts too white he's white trash / he's a racist he's a bigot he's a monster

What the fuck is this horseshit? What does "acting too white" even fucking look like? Watching NASCAR on a sailboat while listening to polka? Typically when I see racism from white people it's in the form of denying that brown-hued people deal with any additional difficulties in life due to their skin tone, or denying that there have been structural obstacles for them through history, or lamenting that their white children are being burdened with a broader lens on culture or with (gasp! shock!) an accurate accounting of actual US history, including the ugly bits that we shouldn't be proud of (but MUST learn from). I'm progressive / lefty as fuck and there is no aspect of "white culture" or "acting white" which upsets me in the slightest. UNLESS one counts "denying racism exists / has ever existed" as a fundamental value of being white. Which... why would anyone want to claim that nonsense? If you want to listen to classic country music in a rusty pickup truck while driving to an evangelical church, then discuss hockey over Buds after 18 holes with the rest of your tractor pull team, then absolutely go nuts my fellow caucusoid! Just recognize and understand that your life experiences may not be the same as those of others. Further, if we care about trying to avoid unnecessary, avoidable unfairness in life (recognizing that life will never truly be fair, for anyone), then it might be reasonable for some governmental / legal / structural recognition in furtherance of that notion. There is absolutely room for legitimate policy disagreement here without being accused of racism. It's denial of others' reality which tends to garner the label of racist (sexist etc) - steer clear of denying the lived experiences of other people, allow for the possibility they may have encountered difficulties you haven't / won't, and we've room for further discussion.

Edit / final point: I voted the video back up to 0 from the -1 where I found it. Because while I disagree with a lot of the positions taken by the performer, they may have reached them through no fault of their own and with no true malice. Misinformation / disinformation is a devious shit of a motherfucker, and the rot it causes can run deep. It is painful to abandon deeply-held beliefs, on a fundamental level. If nothing else, the video gives us room to discuss some specific viewpoints held by people who think of themselves as good, but which can lead to harm.

So….Texas Republicans have decided to try to secede from the union as part of their official party platform. Kind of hard to pretend you guys are patriotic Americans when it’s your official plan to dissolve the union out of spite.

I actually say good riddance, let red states all secede, RGTOW, they will quickly become a third world country we can exploit. Red states take WAY more from the federal government than they put in, relying on blue state taxes to keep running. It would be hilarious to see how fast infrastructure, services, and government break down in such an occurrence.

It would also be interesting to see how they think they would defend themselves without the US military. As usual, the Cons never think things through. I so want to see how this would play out. Can we short sell Texas?

Seems like you guys need to take your own advice….if you don’t like it here in America, you can GET OUT.

If you watch this and feel anything but complete terror, you're missing the point. An AI controlled drone swarm is a military nightmare: you can blind radar; shut down comms; interrupt C3 at a crucial moment.

The things that can be done with a thousand cheap drones and some basic AI can render billion-dollar military systems moot in the event of real combat. The US Navy is already shitting themselves over this (there's already been a few incidents, most recently off the coast of San Diego), and the USAF isn't far behind. Serious drones incidents -- from unknown attackers -- have happened in the US. This including an attempted attack on a power station and a bizarre cat-and-mouse game between USBP/HLS and an unidentified "super drone" over Arizona on more than one occasion.

Did you notice what they were displaying? This wasn't meant to be oo-aah cute, this was China telling the US military they fuck around at their own risk. The last time someone sent a message this clearly, Billy Mitchell was flying a biplane over a captured German destroyer.

"Far less chance for severe mishaps, too" -- I know you meant something totally different, but in the case of what I'm talking about, the exact opposite holds true.

Yes, jokes are "supposed" to be funny. If you show a video of an 11 degree ramp and say "oh its only 3 degrees" it adds nothing to your suggested punchline of the joke. In fact it detracts from it (i.e. if it is only 3 degrees then Biden running up it is meaningless).

Trump was factually correct. It was a steep ramp. There is just no way out of that. It doesn't mean he didn't look like a baby learning to walk as he walked down it, but it was still steep.

The punchline (if it were a joke, and it's not) would be Joe Biden running down the ramp. Not up. Unfortunately, for some reason, never before has the media foccused on a president walking down a ramp and it been a topic of conversation (because really, it is fucking inane). But if you hunt enough, you can find a video of Obama striding down the back ramp.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?293666-1/us-military-academy-commencement

A basic requirement for being funny is... being funny. Which this video is not. But each to their own I guess.

This.

I get there is plenty of room to criticise Israeli actions and call them too aggressive. This is just not such an example, in any way, shape or form.

As vil said, this happened when Israel was actively at war. Nasser had blocked Israeli shipping and moved Egpytian forces onto the border. Israel then made a pre-emptive strike wiping out the Egyptian air-force, and then launching a ground offensive. The USS Liberty was running as an unmarked ship in the wrong place at the wrong time and Israel hit it too.

Israel knew it was a US military vessel or they didn't. If they didn't, it's highly possible they decided the unmarked military vessel was a threat and hit it. If they did, they decided it was a good idea to hit an American owned military vessel while starting/engaging a war with Egypt.

I can't reason out any situation where Israel thinks it's a good idea to deliberately kill and engage the US here, it's all bad for them. The most reasonable explanation is they attacked an unmarked military vessel in a war zone because they knew it wasn't their own.

It's pretty but what does it say? So - weapons exports: sold to military, sold to civilian, transferred for use in conflict by US military, transferred for us in conflict by other countries? What is included - is a fighter jet a weapon? is a tank a weapon? My point: I don't know whether to be astounded or just "meh". It's data without scale or comparison (e.g. 1/3 of all firearms sold in the USA are produced internationally). Hmmm...

Most (all?) of these are US military games.

Standard load for the US military is 7 thirty round mags. You can carry more or less, but that is the general amount.

My biggest complaint would be that if we are assuming these to be WW2 Marines, there is no way a force of 300 would all be carrying Thompsons. In general, they would be using BARs or M1 Garands. If they were Korean era, M14s. These would have used a much more deadly projectile that easily could penetrate multiple targets packed close together.


Could a force armed correctly for the time period indicated actually kill that many targets? Numbers would suggest they would run out of ammo with some Romans still alive. However, we then run into some intangibles.

One must factor the sheer shock value of a force literally laying your fellow soldiers out in windrows. I would suspect that even highly disciplined Roman soldiers would begin to break and flee at some point.

Assuming they did not break ranks, the soldiers would still have bayonets, grenades, and personal sidearms. The Romans would still also be attacking an elevated position. As the Korean war showed us, it could go either way, but the likelihood is that the elevated position would eventually triumph in hand to hand combat. Not to mention that the Romans would be dealing with typically healthier, larger, and better trained soldiers.

Now if this was 300 current era Marines, it would be a slaughter. They would be using highly accurate 5.56 weapons with around 63000 rounds of ammo.

And the post 1990 borders of Texas include historically Mexican lands populated by Mexican people...so what. It was sovereign and Russia acknowledged that, agreed to it, and signed binding treaties ratifying it permanently.

Those keys and systems would have been quickly replaced had those treaties not been enacted...enough of them to be a deterrent. Had we not agreed to defend them and Russia agreed to never try to annex or otherwise take them over, they would have been a nuclear nation and safe from Russian expansion.

As I said, not defending them was a violation. I'm not defending the US's actions.
Opportunity kicked off Russian land grabs, make no mistake.

That statement reflects our undeniable obligation under clear international treaty, not any personally desire to be at war.
Nuclear powers often go to war...by proxy. We've been in one in Syria recently. Edit: according to Russia, they weren't there anyway, so they would be hard pressed to complain about US military in the Ukraine fighting what Russia said were all Ukrainians, no?

Regarding collusion-This isn't a legal forum, you can debate legal terminology and specific charges on one, here, we all understand what collusion means and none of us are swearing out specific legal charges.
Definition of collusion:secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose; acting in collusion with the enemy

Edit: As for the coup, many called it the revolution. It was a coup by the populace, who largely thought the elections were rigged for pro Russians. That said, it was probably a violation for us to eventually support it (I think we waited until after Russian incursions, though). It still, in no way, excuses the Crimean or Ukrainian invasions and annexations.

Congratulations! Your video, Why The US Military Made GPS Free-To-Use, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

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Your video, Why The US Military Made GPS Free-To-Use, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

What are you talking about? The people who argued that tobacco was safe are the exact same people that now argue climate change isn't real, isn't caused by humans. They are in the small minority of scientists that say it isn't happening, and they can all be ignored as they aren't climate scientists. When it comes to discussions on climate, you only pay attention to what research comes from those who's job it is to study it. If you had 90 brain surgeons saying to remove a tumor from your brain, but a podiatrist said, don't worry, you wouldn't listen to the podiatrist. Science is the same. Now among those climate scientists you have a 97% consensus that the primary cause in the uptick (uptick being a keyword, as it is not from baseline, but up from the expected natural rise, and that uptick is HUGE) in the undeniable warming of the planet, is caused by humans burning fossil fuels. There is no denying that climate change is real, there's no denying it is primarily caused by humans, there's no denying it will have a huge impact on billions of people. It is the idiot who doesn't believe that it is real.

Now I'd agree that some of the comments may seem extreme, and said suggestions may not be the best. That is an argument best left for a show like Utopia, a rather great show that sadly didn't make it to a second season. However, there a billions of lives at risk if we don't act soon on halting climate change. Perhaps not billions of lives conservatives care about, as they are poor, third and second world lives, but lives none the less. Droughts will get worse, deserts will expand, hurricanes will increase, tornadoes will increase, hotter hots, and colder colds, there are a ton of changes coming that will make it harder on the poorest of people, people who can't adapt as quickly as the top few percent in the US.

Should people have concern about wars, and the conservative powers that be that love them? Yes, and those issues have been raised by many scientists, especially the big name ones who appear on TV. However, you can't ignore the wars that will start if we don't fight climate change either. Resources will become scarce, and this will cause conflicts that may eventually embroil the US, a concern that the US military has over climate change... this may be why conservatives ignore it, because nothing makes conservatives more happy than murdering people via war. You want to stop war, then stooping climate change has to be a huge priority.

Despite the wars, we are still at the most peaceful time in all history. Yes, we need to do more. Moving off fossil fuels alone would stop a lot of the wars, as that's why the US has an interest in the region. If we could stop giving a fuck about oil, and the US oil market, then we'd have less reason to pick a side on which form of Islam is best for US interests... which of course is why the US was targeted in the first place (that, and our unwavering support of Israel's illegal actions).

Also, it's not like anyone has said climate change should be our only concern. As I already said, all the wars has been brought up many times, as has the conservatives love of giving weapons to those most responsible for the 9/11 attacks, while blaming others for stuff they never did. And, as I've said, those concerns have been repeated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and others who appear on TV, and are well known with the public. Other issues that many scientists in the public eye have been brought up beyond wars: the potential for global pandemics; the idiots not getting vaccinations for their children, for unfounded fears that were proven false; the need for clean drinking water in poor regions; the lack of concern for real science education, and many many other subjects are brought to the public's attention via their social channels, books, talks, or other means. When they are on TV, that is the subject the media pretends there's a debate about though, so if the media at large is all that one pays attention to, then yes, that would seem to be the only subject of concern. The TLDR of this is that they have brought up many concerns beyond just climate change, blame the media for not spreading their other concerns.

Here's a thought, instead of adding $600 billion dollars to the US military budget, we could use some of that money to push broadband out to every home in the US.

When every struggling post-boom town has high speed internet, we just need to push the dinosaurs who resist "work from home" out of senior management positions in the corporate world and we'll have a migration towards the smaller, more remote communities, where property values are much lower.

It will mean that sprawl subdivisions will become the new slums...but that just provides incentive to bulldoze those warts off the map and return the lost farmland.

The paradigm shift would spark massive economic growth.

Naw...we need more tactical stealth fighters.

Interesting point about NK feeling they have no choice due to the US interventions in the middle east.

In particular I can now see why disarmament negotiations are probably doomed to failure since NK have no reason to trust them. Of course, a US military assault will just send the same message again.

It's a tough one. I think we might need to bring Jared Kushner in on this.