Bwaaaahahahaha.
You are the epitome of a laughing stock…you win…here’s your “biggest boob” trophy. 🏆
Oh you dumbshit….The Washington Free Beacon (a right wing publication) and Paul Singer, (a far right mega donor) paid for the Steele dossier about Trump, then later sold it to Clinton. That’s a fact.
Republicans created the Steele dossier, and most, like 90% of it, is confirmed to be correct, none of it was ever proven false (EG- if the dossier said an anonymous source said Russians have pee tape blackmail material against Trump and it is never found, the dossier wasn’t proven to be wrong at all, it just reported the claim). People (like Manafort) went to prison for charges stemming from it.

But you [are] a foolish ignorant man has no idea of any reality because you watch slanted one sided internet propaganda from anywhere as long as it’s anti American. It’s never correct, it never includes legitimate sources, and it’s 100% anti American, anti constitution twaddle and inconsistent lies.

Since you believe anything you see online, watch this unverified report and enjoy… https://youtube.com/shorts/_f1bYWlfApQ?feature=share
And…
https://youtube.com/shorts/lV-pDw6fUTY?feature=share

You said near 3 weeks ago that Bakhmut HAD fallen and was under 100% Russian control, proven by the faked Russian propaganda film of someone raising a Russian flag somewhere and declaring victory, but Bakhmut is still not taken, Russians are losing 1000 troops a day, and Ukraine just got 40000 more troops and billions more worth of current military equipment, Russia is using 70+ year old equipment they’ve never trained with and is dropping bombs on itself.
I’m taking sides, I’m with democracy and stability by treaty.
You are too-siding with Russia, despotism, expansionism, and lies.
Russia is losing ground, losing soldiers, losing equipment, losing borders, losing its long term stalemate with NATO, losing billions from sanctions, and is losing this war. Facts are facts, and you’ve never met a real fact you could agree with.

Russia entered Ukraine because they tossed out the Russia installed “president” (his first “election” was thrown out as a total farce). Yanukovych delayed signing a hugely popular pending association agreement with the EU, choosing to accept a hugely unpopular and bad for Ukraine Russian trade deal, leading to his removal from office and, surprise, cushy retirement in Russia.

NATO had nothing whatsoever to do with Russia breaking the treaty from the 80’s in which they and the United States guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and border security in perpetuity if they gave up their nukes. That included Crimea, which Russia invaded too over nonsense lies.
They declared Crimea under terrorist attack (it wasn’t) and invaded “to protect the citizens”. They did the same in Ukraine, recognizing the terrorist separatists as the legitimate (unelected) government and declaring the real government were terrorists attacking peaceful Russians in Eastern Ukraine. (The same peaceful Russians that shot down a commercial airline full of innocent people completely uninvolved in their conflict).

Putin said the purpose of the operation was to "protect the people" in the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Donbas who he falsely claimed that "for eight years now, [had] been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime". Putin said that Russia sought the "demilitarisation and denazification" of Ukraine, and insisted Russia wouldn’t occupy any of Ukraine….all pure lies. He now says he intends to remove Ukraine from the map and Ukrainians from the gene pool.

It had absolutely nothing to do with NATO….NATO wasn’t considering giving Ukraine, Sweden, or Finland membership before the land grab invasions. You lackwit. If anything it was fear that Ukraine might join the EU….but really it was the loss of their installed Russian president that was beholding to the Kremlin, not any of the lame excuses they’ve made since.

You just love to rewrite history and always expect everyone else to be as ignorant of reality as yourself. Sadly for you, some people have memories longer than a methed out gnat and know why things happened, not just what the perpetrators of crimes say today that contradicts everything they said yesterday and before.
There’s no agreement to not expand NATO. Who told you that, Putin?

But has the actual history, or the nuclear treaty, or the ousting of the Russian planted president by the populace and installation of their chosen president (exactly what you hoped for with Trump on Jan 6 except instead of 2000 people it was the entire country performing a coup) been given on your fake propaganda websites? If so, you missed it all.

Me neither, but when I looked into what @noims mentioned, that’s what I found.

The overt abuse of power over their own stupidity is outrageous. Worse is the near total support he (and other moronic governors) have from their voters for these spiteful, illegal, retaliatory political moves that hurt them in the first place. It’s so sad the “rational” party has become the irrational party to save itself from extinction. Courting the morons among us was the most anti American thing I can recall.

I’m thinking of Florida, who just refused $165 million per year to cover all infrastructure and services in Orange County in a spiteful idiotic move against Disney for not going along with the anti gay laws the pedophile party just enacted. Not only that, they also effectively blocked Disney from any new construction, as if that’s good for Florida. Non Orange County residents seem to think this is a good move, but they likely won’t when their taxes go way up next year…OC taxes are expected to rise over 25% next year alone, likely far more in the coming years.

Next, maybe Musk can buy Disneyworld and ruin it too, and Disney can move to a state willing to put its sovereignty in their constitution.

90%? You underestimate by 9.99% IMO.

I’ve seen assaults. I’ve seen disturbing the peace in residential neighborhoods 24/7 for weeks on end. I’ve seen what amounts to kidnapping (trapping people in their cars on the street and blockading them in).
BTW, we aren’t India, more money was lost at this one crossing than if you blockaded all of India for the same timeframe. In America, we don’t just let other people block our borders….that’s our thing!

No, the bridge was not part of a recent past long term blockade, no farmer blockade shut down auto manufacturing on both sides of the borders or weeks. You are incorrect.

Protests are acceptable, even if they cause inconvenience. Protests without an issue that last for weeks-months with the only intent being causing economic damage aren’t protests, they’re tantrums. These protesters didn’t know why they were there besides getting the liberal out of power through any means.

These “protesters” deserved nothing but ridicule, their anti vax position is ridiculous, they know it, and it’s moot because the mandates change with the severity of the outbreak, and are from both sides of the border….Trudeau can’t force America to drop our mandates, and border crossers must be vaccinated….period. Notice when the mandates being lifted soon was announced they didn’t leave but just changed their demands. It’s not a protest, it’s an economic blackmail attempt.

The problem there is most of the violence was not part of the BLM protests (despite the lies right wing media produced all 2020), they were often nearby, taking advantage of the lowered police presence outside the protests, and often was violence directed at BLM, not coming from them. The people terrorizing and inciting violence, shooting crowds, planting bombs, lighting fires, shooting police, etc were Proud boys and Boogaloo boys…far right anti protesters. The idiots carried their manifestos explaining the false flag operation when they committed their crimes, and were caught repeatedly.

They should have simply used tow trucks, confiscating every truck involved to be sold at auction to pay for some of the exorbitant costs, far more than all summer of BLM and anti BLM protests, btw.

This was a threat to your sovereignty, and wasn’t being addressed by other laws or means (sounded like the police chief was a fan).

Seizure is perfection, but should include oversight (I bet it really does, you aren’t America where we’ve made it legal for police to commit armed robbery with no oversight). Note- seizure is different from forfeiture. They’re likely freezing accounts, not seizing the funds, right? Details matter.

It’s not just what they’re protesting, they don’t even know that themselves, it’s how and where. That said, the total lack of support among the population counts. I would expect any protest protesting against it being illegal to eat live babies to get shut down fast, no matter how civil they were on the streets.

Lemme guess, a pipeline crossing sovereign native lands under protest? Going over aquifers? Through preserves? Pumping tar sands no one really wants?
Millions in damages are an hour of the truck protests. They’re designed to cost tens of millions per day…costing everyone not just the target of their protest.

No known connection to protesters, but you want there to be one and are upset they didn’t just fabricate one? It sounds incredibly likely they’re involved, but without evidence one shouldn’t assign culpability.

They have the right to say anything, they don’t have the right to silence all other discussion and action while they ramble and party for weeks-months because they have nothing to say, but are loving the disruption they’re causing. A strong democracy doesn’t support one tiny group negating the entire continent’s voice for months. That’s what this is, they said their peace by day 2, now it’s not a protest, it’s an economic attack trying to blackmail a country (nearly a continent) into abandoning public health for a TINY minority of morons who want special privileges.

@newtboy,

Finally we're talking about my Canada .

I'm agreed with calling 90% of what the convoy and truckers are protesting as being misguided, ill informed or flat out wrong. That however shouldn't be what the right to protest is based upon.

The extent of the protestors illegal activity seems to have been blocking of roadways and borders. Which in Canada isn't exactly new:
-Blockading of roads to logging work sites to "protect old growth forest"
-Blockading of roads pipeline construction sites
-Blockading of transportation highways and railroads

In the past 2 years alone, those various sites have seen blockades ranging from weeks to months. In virtually every single one of those instances the Liberal government went out to meet and negotiate with the protestors while allowing them to continue for weeks to months. In one of the biggest protests Trudeau himself went to meet with the groups in person. Trudeau has a video of himself praising the farmer convoy and blockades in India, declaring his government will always defend the right of groups to protest.(those groups blocked multiple border crossings)

This time though, Trudeau started out with insulting, ridiculing and belittling the protestors. Within the first day of the protests, politicians and our national news corp in CBC were demanding an immediate end to the protests.

The protests that have seen comparable zero violence to the protests in the US in support of Floyd(which I support), where condemned repeatedly by the CBC and Trudeau as terrorizing the populace and inciting violence. For reference, Trudeau remained steadfast in support of the Floyd protestors right to protest.

The federal government essentially tried insults and ridicule to try and end this protest though, and when that didn't work they invoked a national emergency measures act that requires both:
-A threat to Canada's sovereignty
-A threat that can not be addressed by any other laws or means

The government then proceeded to empower themselves to not merely arrest protestors, but to freeze/seize the bank accounts of anyone considered to be supporting the protest, with no court oversight required.

The difference in how protestors are treated based upon what it is they are protesting is alarming and should be a red flag for anyone and everyone.

For reference, while these protests were going on, a pipeline worksite in BC that has been continually shut down by protests for the last several years was attacked in the night by a mob wielding machetes and axes. The workers and security were chased off and millions in damages were done to the site afterwards. Trudeau didn't feel the need to even address the incident though because he was to busy villianizing the convoy. The CBC media buried the incident under local BC news, and downplayed it as an 'alleged' incident, despite RCMP having responded and even having had an officer injured in the incident. CBC also emphasized there wasn't any verified connection to the ongoing protests against the pipeline...

When you look at the narrative, despite my disagreeing with the vast majority of what the convoy is wanting to say, I am disgusted by the attempt to remove their right to say it and everyone wanting to support a strong democracy with the right protest should feel the same.

Just as your right to swing your fist ends firmly at my nose, your right to be an idiotic anti science virus incubator and virulent disease vector ends firmly at your property line.

Isn’t it hilarious that right wingers want to use personal sovereignty, control and authority over your own body, as a shield from responsibility for their dangerous, deadly actions, but absolutely refuse it’s existence when it comes to women having authority over their own bodies, ie abortion/birth control.

But we KNOW he’s willing to give up democracy, sovereignty, solvency, even liberty for Trump.
Yes, I did note he didn’t dispute that Trumpism is fascism....but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t understand the term because he’s labeled the last election and it’s winner a fascist in the past.

I did for years....I rode my bike 35 miles a day between home, school, and work. I got pulled over without ID, then went on my way without issue.

"Travel" is a different word from "drive"....that's why they are spelled and pronounced differently. You're sounding like one of those idiotic "Freemen" who think they can declare personal sovereignty....they always claim a right to travel without ID means any type of traveling including driving and flying on airplanes, it doesn't.

Expansionist Russia is back, and their neighbors need help guarding against Russian overthrow. That time is back.
Ukraine is not Russian, and it had a nuclear weapons program to safeguard against Russian incursions...which we convinced them to give up under our, and Russia's guarantee of their sovereignty and borders, and our guarantee to defend them militarily against Russia should it ever try to take any back, Crimea had the same guarantees. We should be at war with Russia today over it's murderous expansions. Russia entering either area at all was an act of war against us by treaty, one we barely responded to with defensive missiles in countries that wanted them desperately before they became Russian themselves.
The anti Russian sentiment is because of the land grabs, not an excuse for them. Holy shit!

Collusion against your own government and country to subvert the law with a foreign country is a crime. The collusion compounds the subversion.

People use the word collude to assert that Russia and the campaign illegally coordinated, you wrote it backwards.

*doublepromote
The invasions and cultural genocides we inflicted on natives are two of America's greatest national crimes. I could fully support giving back the undeveloped private island of Niihau and barely developed Molokai to a native Hawaiian nation. I had no idea there was a movement to regain sovereignty.

@newtboy,

No, it's about law. Warren Jeffries people did all that, on a smaller scale. They weren't their own country, even though they got away with it for decades. Law.

Forgive my lack of familiarity with him, but your telling me he (on a smaller scale than Texas), stopped paying taxes, and instead collecting them. Started up his own legal and justice system. He created his own borders within which the police would not dare set foot because it would be a death sentence for them. And after he'd done all this the US military itself failed to remove him as well?

Or are you meaning not just scale, but severity and all the other rather meaningful extremes of sovereignty that the Taliban and Al Qaida achieved? It's the same then in the sense that me punching you is violent just me killing ten people is violent, but in another sense they are nothing alike...

No, but they couldn't indiscriminately bomb Houston and any large gatherings either....not even if Spencer might be there. The first American civilian they kill will start a war...a real, legitimate war.

Your not embracing the analogy. Spencer's terrorists are still killing American civilians every week, outside of Texas borders. The American military is just corrupt enough that as long as its democrats/republicans dying,(whomever we choose to not be in power) they let it slide because it shows the need for the military to 'protect' the country.

You need to take a harder look at Pakistani politics to see just how powerful Al Qaida and the Taliban's control over the tribal areas has been.

More over, all of the above definitions of state within a state violence and jihad doesn't require war as the response to acts of war. To invade Afghanistan to prevent another 9/11 is dubious at best. Even the Kissinger's of the world wouldn't count the value of that trade off, losing a couple thousand Americans to an attack each decade or so is 'acceptable' loses.
Call it the price of freedom and carry on. The real trick was that if the Taliban and Al Qaida were so tight with Pakistan's military and intelligence services, how concerned should America be that the Pakistani proxies in their tribal regions and Afghanistan are so keen to target Americans. That lead directly to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal being a big enough concern with that pairing that maybe it was time to tell Pakistan they had to end their little dance with terrorists hitting Americans and they had better make a choice who they are going to side with in the Jihad that was already being waged for 2 decades.

Then, you (We) are suggesting legitimizing their claim to be autonomous states by accepting that classification to be able to declare war against them. Horrible idea, and against international law.

I call bullshit. That's like saying if an American commits a crime outside of America, or inside it against a foreigner, America just declared war on that country. Absolute bullshit. if Pakistan's government didn't direct the attack, they aren't declaring war. You don't hold a nation accountable for the actions of a few criminals within their borders unless they are backed by that nation. Because they can't stop the monster(s) we made (neither can we) absolutely in no way means they yield their sovereignty...that's asinine. EDIT: your theory would mean the Bundies would be their own country now, sovereign and at war with America, because we were unable to stop them from taking over public land (repeatedly), and didn't prosecute any of them.

Bullshit again. Because they aren't a state, they shouldn't be treated as one, no matter what bullshit they claim. Duh. Maybe they claim to be one, but they don't run away from that claim, it just isn't given credence by accepting it. They mostly are illegal aliens in the countries they now live in.

Afghanistan had good reason to refuse Bush....and you might recall were fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaida already for control of their own country.

Afghanistan was not hosting the terrorists, they 'invaded' or morphed out of non government controlled militias (Al-Qaida started as a retirement unit for the 'freedom fighters' we trained to fight Russia) . The Afghan government has excellent reasons to never invite a super power to cross their borders ever again.....and empires have good reason to avoid doing so. Afghanistan did not start or declare war with us, some invaders and criminals squatting in caves there did.

Exactly, the terrorist organizations aren't the fault or beneficiary of the government's in the countries where they hide or invade, they are the fault of those that support them, oddly missing from the travel ban and our assassination plans. See how that might piss off Afghansans and Pakistani?

Trying split up addressing your points and enoch's here, forgive me if things bleed over between a bit.

Large terrorist networks like Al Qaida were and still are using your definitions against your country. They operated with impunity and effectively as their own autonomous state within the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The question is whether acts of war launched from that region then are classed as an act of the Afghan or Pakistani state. If they are, then Afghanistan and Pakistan are to be held to account as states launching the act of war. If they are not, then they have for intents and purposes yielded the sovereignty of that territory to a new independent state waging it's own independent war.

The jihadists are trying to hard to live in an international loophole where they are operating with the autonomy of a state right up until another nation state wants to wage war back against them and then suddenly they are just citizens of the larger state they are technically within the borders of.

When the Bush admin pushed back hard, the Afghanistan government refused(more on this in my reply to Enoch) while the Pakistani government extremely begrudgingly agreed to at least pretend they weren't friendly with them in back channels anymore. Thus act of war met with war in Afghanistan, and yes, I would insist a war that Afghanistan initiated and NOT GW.

As for Saudi Arabia, they are more responsible for Jihadi ideology and funding than any other state, and yes the west largely has ignored it so long as they sold their oil and then used the money to buy back top of the line American made military hardware. I have to say I think it's a bit shortsighted to have made Saudi Arabia number 3 on the global military budget charts... You won't find my hypocritically trying to defend them, they are the ones sending most of the money into Pakistan's mountains to build the madrasa's that don't seem to teach anything after how to fire and assemble your AK.

@newtboy

not to butt my nose in...
ah who am i kidding..of course i am going to butt my nose in.

you and space are getting caught up on definitions.
neo-conservative which is a fairly new political philosophy from the 1960's by irving kristol,whose name you may recognize as bill-the bloody- kristol (weekly standard) father.

prior to neoconservatism was.../drum roll
neoliberalism.

the fundamental difference is what you alluded to newt,but in my opinion were far too gracious in your definition.
while neoconservatism is far more hawkish,seeing american and "manifest destiny" as her right,and being a global power has a right to use that power to serve her interests,even if that be way of military force.the ultimate goal is to spread american excellence to the world in the form of markets.we sell our awesome and they buy,and we extract what we need for our interests a.k.a business baby.

neoliberalism may be more "dovish" but the goals are the same:political and financial dominance.

and the results are very similar as well.
so while neoliberalism may use economic hitmen,the IMF and the GTO to impose the will of american buisiness,and the neoconservatives may rely on the military heavily..

countries are still stripped of their resources,their labor exploited and a starbucks on every corner.their sovereignty is more a suggestion than an actual respective entity.

both philosophies are abhorrent and destructive and cause incredible suffering....and death.

i am super high right now,so if i misread your guys conflict..please forgive.
if i read it right and helped..
you are welcome!

I don't know what was the right decision. The fear mongering on both sides of the aisle makes it hard to appraise. But I don't get how people can't understand those that voted to leave. It seems like needlessly divisive hyperbole. Welcome to politics, I suppose.

In their shoes I would be concerned with the ongoing erosion of sovereignty over their lives. It seems indisputable that the further removed the decision makers are from the people, the less those people not only feel, and the less those people will actually be in charge. It also seems indisputable that more decisions were being taken by remote decision makers as time went on.

Again, one may have reasons to disagree, but to not understand it seems to say far more about the one failing to understand than anyone else.