Ukraine

[Libertas]

Troll defends trump

Nothing new

[Libertas]

Saturday night live cold open Ukrainian chorus of New York

[ap215]

Ukraine files genocide case against Russia at UN’s top court

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Ukraine launched a case against Russia at the United Nations’ highest court accusing Moscow of planning genocide and asking the court to intervene to halt the invasion and order Russia to pay reparations, the court said Sunday.

The case, filed Saturday, asks the International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, to indicate “provisional measures” ordering Moscow to “immediately suspend the military operations” that were launched Feb. 24.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 1479a9aa27

[gounion]

Why not? You’ve questioned everything else. You’ve made all kinds of claims you can’t support. You’ve been doing it for years. I push back at you one time and you squeal like a stuck pig. You say you are the better man. Who are you trying so hard to convince?

Tell me GoU, what debate point on the Ukraine did you make that I failed to address? Because that’s the topic of the thread.

So you are saying can make any kind of wild personal accusations you want just because?

So much for any high moral ground. You are exactly what you accuse me of being. But you're a conservative, so there is nothing too low and dirty for you, is there?

You're the one that took the topic off Ukraine. I've made several points on Ukraine you haven't addressed. This recent one, for instance.

Run away little one.

[bradman]

Getting a bit desperate are we Mr Putin?

https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war ... of-ukraine
U.S. official: Belarus is preparing to join Russian invasion of Ukraine

Belarus is getting ready to deploy troops to help Russia with its invasion of Ukraine, a U.S. official told reporters on Sunday evening.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko are allies, and the troops could leave Belarus for Ukraine as early as Monday, the official told The Washington Post. "It's very clear Minsk is now an extension of the Kremlin," the official added.

Kuznetsov said Lukashenko "had traditionally tried to maneuver between Russia and the West to maintain some freedom of action, but the brutal crackdown following the 2020 election left him vulnerable and isolated." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday said Lukashenko's regime is "a collaborator" with the Kremlin, and because it is "complicit in this vicious attack against Ukraine," Lukashenko and Belarus will be hit with "a new package of sanctions."

[bold]This is new news? Should have been done days ago. Hit Belarus hard.

Hmmm....Looks like Putin may have backed his ol' self into a corner. Rumor even has it there's dissension amongst his top brass.

[gounion]

To be fair, the last several administrations have misjudged Putin don’t you think? I don’t think either Obama or Trump saw this coming nor do I think they could have prevented it. I think we are where we are mainly because of Putin. This is what he’s wanted all along. The issue is where do we go from here? I don’t believe undermining the current POTUS for partisan political reasons is helpful. What we need to do is to build a stronger international coalition to counter Russian, China and other totalitarian bad actors. Biden is the horse we’ve chosen to get us there and building a coalition among all the various countries and competing interests is difficult at best. So for the time being, we should as a nation be supportive of those efforts instead of fighting needlessly amongst ourselves.

That being said, I do think we need to get back in the oil and gas business in a bigger way.

JMHO

To be fair, GW Bush said he "saw into his soul" and took his measure of the man.

John McCain famously said HE also saw into Putin's soul, and saw the "K, the G and the B." When Obama stood up to Putin, your side sided with Putin. They wanted him to embarrass Obama. They wanted him to BEAT Obama.

Then, your side cheered when Trump sucked up to Putin and Kim and tried to disrupt or disband NATO.

Now we have a President doing the best possible job of dealing with this disaster. Here's what Condi Rice, Bush's Secretary of State had to say:

"So what we're doing in reinforcing NATO forces in the Baltics and in Poland -- NATO's eastern flank, if you will -- this is the way to make sure that he knows the costs would be very high," the former secretary of state remarked.

Rice suggested that Biden has been able to "unite" NATO to push back against Putin's alleged war crimes to a degree that former presidents could not.

"It is certainly against every principle of international law and international order, and that's why throwing the book at them now in terms of economic sanctions and punishments is also a part of it," she said. "And I think the world is there. Certainly, NATO is there. He's managed to unite NATO in ways I didn't think I would ever see again after the end of the Cold War."

As president, Trump actively worked to undermine NATO and even considered withdrawing from the treaty organization.

But people like Mike Pompeo praised Putin and attacked Biden.

Barring indictments and convictions, Trump will be the GOP candidate in 2024. Why should we listen your side in any way, shape or form?

Do you think sucking up to Putin is a better way to handle things?

[JoeMemphis]

So you are saying can make any kind of wild personal accusations you want just because?

So much for any high moral ground. You are exactly what you accuse me of being. But you're a conservative, so there is nothing too low and dirty for you, is there?

You're the one that took the topic off Ukraine. I've made several points on Ukraine you haven't addressed. This recent one, for instance.

Run away little one.

More deflection. What Ukraine debate point did I fail to address?

[JoeMemphis]

To be fair, GW Bush said he "saw into his soul" and took his measure of the man.

John McCain famously said HE also saw into Putin's soul, and saw the "K, the G and the B." When Obama stood up to Putin, your side sided with Putin. They wanted him to embarrass Obama. They wanted him to BEAT Obama.

Then, your side cheered when Trump sucked up to Putin and Kim and tried to disrupt or disband NATO.

Now we have a President doing the best possible job of dealing with this disaster. Here's what Condi Rice, Bush's Secretary of State had to say:


But people like Mike Pompeo praised Putin and attacked Biden.

Barring indictments and convictions, Trump will be the GOP candidate in 2024. Why should we listen your side in any way, shape or form?

Do you think sucking up to Putin is a better way to handle things?

I think the best way to defeat Putin is to cut his legs from under him economically by taking away his oil revenue. Past administrations have somehow believed that they could deal with the man. Obviously that has not worked. He funds his machine with oil and gas. Something we have in abundance. We should be looking for ways to put him out of business instead of enabling him and making excuses for putting money in his pocket.

[gounion]

I think the best way to defeat Putin is to cut his legs from under him economically by taking away his oil revenue. Past administrations have somehow believed that they could deal with the man. Obviously that has not worked. He funds his machine with oil and gas. Something we have in abundance. We should be looking for ways to put him out of business instead of enabling him and making excuses for putting money in his pocket.

False. We’ve used up most of our cheap-to-get oil. It’s far more expensive to drill deep offshore rigs. But again, you’re arguing to put money into horse and buggy in 1900 instead of in automobiles. We need to turn from oil, then we can tell them all to take a leap.

the GOP has chosen to continue to praise Putin as a genius and to attack anything and everything that Biden is doing.

Why don’t you make the case that Trump and his GOP needs to replace Biden at the helm.

[gounion]

WaPo Op/Ed making the important points:

Part of this new paradigm is that foreign policy is now a partisan matter. In 2016, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary offered an endorsement of then-candidate Donald Trump, admiration that was later returned. Mr. Putin’s Russia reportedly meddled in the American election in 2016, and the Russian president has admitted that he wanted Mr. Trump to win. Those amicable relationships trickled down to the Republican voting population, which shifted its views on Mr. Putin’s favorability, which soared from a mere 10 percent in July 2014 to 37 percent in December 2016. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll from January of this year found that 62 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents consider Vladimir Putin a stronger leader than Joe Biden.

“Strong” may be the key word here. In this construction, a strong leader is apparently one who cracks down on opposition, cultural and political, and does not concede. This idea then dovetails with right-wing ideas that liberal elites are actively corroding deeply held traditional values — including traditional gender roles. For those who spend a fair amount of airtime worrying about the emasculation of men, the kind of strength portrayed by Mr. Putin — who on Monday convened his top security officials and demanded they publicly stand and support him — is perhaps appealing.

Many of the admirers of the world’s strongmen on the American right appear to believe that the countries each of these men lead are beacons of whiteness, Christianity and conservative values. On Wednesday, conservative commentator Rod Dreher wrote, “I adamantly oppose risking the lives of boys from Louisiana and Alabama to make the Donbass safe for genderqueers and migrants.”

These comments, from the right, aren’t exactly advancing a new position. In 2018, the political commentator Pat Buchanan said that Mr. Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko were “standing up for traditional values against Western cultural elites.” He considered the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs to have told a “moral truth” in asserting that same-sex relationships were “fake.” But those traditional values do not include the freedom to political opposition. According to Viasna Human Rights Center, an organization dedicated to keeping track of Belarusian abuses, there are over 1,000 political prisoners in Belarus, many of whom were arrested for peaceful assembly, protesting or daring to engage in political activities.

So, the right would like to see Putin take down Biden. Not surprised, we saw this coming when they backed Putin over Obama, and stood silently when Trump sucked up to him.

[bradman]

I think the best way to defeat Putin is to cut his legs from under him economically by taking away his oil revenue. Past administrations have somehow believed that they could deal with the man. Obviously that has not worked. He funds his machine with oil and gas. Something we have in abundance. We should be looking for ways to put him out of business instead of enabling him and making excuses for putting money in his pocket.

How'd John McCain put it? "Russia is, more or less, a giant gas station pretending to be a real country."

[bold] Ever since the Carter days, that term has confused me. It popped up sometime around Carter placing solar panels on the White House roof and still continues on today. In the mean time, the solar panels were taken down and we are now on to injecting poison into our water tables. To make sure we have an "abundance" of fuel in North America, Canada is pitching in by destroying large tracks of land for the love of tar. (Most of it is refined and sold abroad.) And still, some are repeating the same verse started way back when. Yay for ANWR. We desire more off shore drilling.

Ya, you're probably right. If necessity is the mother of invention, then, ya, we'll be fighting over the last drop of fuel to put in our gas tanks just so we can drive to.............

[ProfX]

Dunno, there's two discussions we need to be having.

Energy independence, and energy sustainability. A country that's independent but not obtaining and utilizing energy sustainably has basically moved from frying pan into fire ... and analogy applies, I think.

I do think there was another thing Trump and Putin saw eye to eye on. Climate change is an opportunity, if you consider all the Arctic oil that might now be obtainable as the region becomes less ice-covered. Of course, it will be a disaster for most of the rest of the planet, but ... seems to me if you don't care, it's all ka-ching.

In order to become more independent, and sustainable, and stave off climate disaster, we need to end the fossil fuel era. There's more at stake than telling the Russians or Saudi petro-states to take a hike.

[gounion]

How'd John McCain put it? "Russia is, more or less, a giant gas station pretending to be a real country."

[bold] Ever since the Carter days, that term has confused me. It popped up sometime around Carter placing solar panels on the White House roof and still continues on today. In the mean time, the solar panels were taken down and we are now on to injecting poison into our water tables. To make sure we have an "abundance" of fuel in North America, Canada is pitching in by destroying large tracks of land for the love of tar. (Most of it is refined and sold abroad.) And still, some are repeating the same verse started way back when. Yay for ANWR. We desire more off shore drilling.

Ya, you're probably right. If necessity is the mother of invention, then, ya, we'll be fighting over the last drop of fuel to put in our gas tanks just so we can drive to.............

Because obviously oil is the ONLY POSSIBLE FORM OF ENERGY, and that's all that matters.

The right loves to pollute. That's the only energy they want, the kind that pollutes.

[ZoWie]

I do think there was another thing Trump and Putin saw eye to eye on. Climate change is an opportunity, if you consider all the Arctic oil that might now be obtainable as the region becomes less ice-covered. Of course, it will be a disaster for most of the rest of the planet, but ... seems to me if you don't care, it's all ka-ching.

In order to become more independent, and sustainable, and stave off climate disaster, we need to end the fossil fuel era. There's more at stake than telling the Russians or Saudi petro-states to take a hike.

That's the wisest thing I've read in quite some time. There's more to Putin's psychosis and the kleptocratic power grab than fossil fuel, but sometimes there's not much more. Russia is the only country that benefits, in its own minds anyway, from climate change. Oh, they still get the gas and viruses from melting permafrost, and the economic consequences of mass extinctions, but that hasn't gotten their attention as much as Arctic drilling and a true northwest passage for navigation.

Russia in general is the last gasp of the 20th century order, and given its popularity among the right wing reactionary elements, there's a certain world wide grasp of that fact on at least an unconscious level.

[JoeMemphis]

False. We’ve used up most of our cheap-to-get oil. It’s far more expensive to drill deep offshore rigs. But again, you’re arguing to put money into horse and buggy in 1900 instead of in automobiles. We need to turn from oil, then we can tell them all to take a leap.

the GOP has chosen to continue to praise Putin as a genius and to attack anything and everything that Biden is doing.

Why don’t you make the case that Trump and his GOP needs to replace Biden at the helm.

Former SecDef Rumsfeld once said something to the effect you go to war with the army you’ve got not with the army you want. We aren’t ready and our Allies aren’t ready to do without fossil fuels. So until such time as we are, it makes more sense to rely on resources we produce ourselves rather than rely on resources produced by our enemies. Why don’t you make the case that we need to continue to pour money in Putin’s pocket? Why don’t you make the case that Germany and other of our European allies need to rely on Russia to heat their homes? That’s what’s happening and Putin is using it as a weapon.

[gounion]

Former SecDef Rumsfeld once said something to the effect you go to war with the army you’ve got not with the army you want. We aren’t ready and our Allies aren’t ready to do without fossil fuels. So until such time as we are, it makes more sense to rely on resources we produce ourselves rather than rely on resources produced by our enemies. Why don’t you make the case that we need to continue to pour money in Putin’s pocket? Why don’t you make the case that Germany and other of our European allies need to rely on Russia to heat their homes? That’s what’s happening and Putin is using it as a weapon.

And you're the one that wants to double down on a buggy factory in 1900.

Let's be clear: in the next days or months, we can't drill quick enough to make a difference. But you ignore THAT fact.

We don't have the oil reserves anymore that's cheap to get at. When I was a kid, and we'd go visit relatives in Oklahoma in the sixties, I remember going by mile after mile after mile of oil derricks, pumping and pumping. Now if you go down the road in Oklahoma they're all gone. Remember hearing about Spindletop? The oil boom started in Pennsylvania. That's all gone. Texas oil is pretty much gone. You guys want to destroy Alaska to see if there' more oil there. That and offshore is all we got.

You may not know this, Joe, but there's all kinds of alternatives to oil. If we were to do a Manhattan Project on renewables, we'd really screw Russia. They would have nothing. They couldn't sell their oil anywhere.

But you're part of the new "we can't" America, living in an oil-based past.

Instead, we let China lead the way in renewables, and even buy our windmills from them. God knows we can't make anything in America!

It's funny to see how you can't respond to most of what I've wrote, and keep coming back to your love of fossil fuels. Why don't you just put a derrick up in YOUR back yard?

[ZoWie]

Derricks in back yards are not as viable a solution as they used to be, even in the oil patch.

LA is oil patch all the way, with all its faults trapping that smelly black ooze, but you won't see a derrick here any more. You'll see service rigs tripping pipe in the holes that already exist, but there is no room for new holes.

You can't buy a house in LA without signing over petroleum and asphaltum rights to whoever drilled under your property in the period 1915-1950. In other words, it's all taken.

There just isn't a lot of new fossil fuel in the US. The new fossil fuel is in places more accessible to Russia. By weaning ourselves off fossil fuel as much as possible, we also wean ourselves off the Russian kleptocracy, not to mention the ones in the Middle East that arose despite the bush crime family's best efforts to keep them as virtual colonies.

[gounion]

Derricks in back yards are not as viable a solution as they used to be, even in the oil patch.

That was said in jest of course, not a lot of oil in Tennessee.

LA is oil patch all the way, with all its faults trapping that smelly black ooze, but you won't see a derrick here any more. You'll see service rigs tripping pipe in the holes that already exist, but there is no room for new holes.

You can't buy a house in LA without signing over petroleum and asphaltum rights to whoever drilled under your property in the period 1915-1950. In other words, it's all taken.

There just isn't a lot of new fossil fuel in the US. The new fossil fuel is in places more accessible to Russia. By weaning ourselves off fossil fuel as much as possible, we also wean ourselves off the Russian kleptocracy, not to mention the ones in the Middle East that arose despite the bush crime family's best efforts to keep them as virtual colonies.

But Joe wants more oil - how about DeSantas banning offshore drilling off the coast of Florida? And Trump supporting the ban on offshore drilling up the east coast in all the red states?

So c'mon, Joe, why no drilling in Florida?

[JoeMemphis]

And you're the one that wants to double down on a buggy factory in 1900.

Let's be clear: in the next days or months, we can't drill quick enough to make a difference. But you ignore THAT fact.

We don't have the oil reserves anymore that's cheap to get at. When I was a kid, and we'd go visit relatives in Oklahoma in the sixties, I remember going by mile after mile after mile of oil derricks, pumping and pumping. Now if you go down the road in Oklahoma they're all gone. Remember hearing about Spindletop? The oil boom started in Pennsylvania. That's all gone. Texas oil is pretty much gone. You guys want to destroy Alaska to see if there' more oil there. That and offshore is all we got.

You may not know this, Joe, but there's all kinds of alternatives to oil. If we were to do a Manhattan Project on renewables, we'd really screw Russia. They would have nothing. They couldn't sell their oil anywhere.

But you're part of the new "we can't" America, living in an oil-based past.

Instead, we let China lead the way in renewables, and even buy our windmills from them. God knows we can't make anything in America!

It's funny to see how you can't respond to most of what I've wrote, and keep coming back to your love of fossil fuels. Why don't you just put a derrick up in YOUR back yard?

I’m all for developing renewable energy but in the meantime, this country and most of the rest of the world depends on oil and gas. That’s just the fact. You aren’t going to snap your fingers and transition from oil and gas to wind and solar. So to use your analogy, I’m not about to give up my horse and buggy on a promise of a viable alternative ten years from now. To use another analogy, I’m not jumping from an airplane hoping to get a parachute somewhere on the way down.

[gounion]

I’m all for developing renewable energy but in the meantime, this country and most of the rest of the world depends on oil and gas. That’s just the fact. You aren’t going to snap your fingers and transition from oil and gas to wind and solar. So to use your analogy, I’m not about to give up my horse and buggy on a promise of a viable alternative ten years from now. To use another analogy, I’m not jumping from an airplane hoping to get a parachute somewhere on the way down.

If we need this oil so bad, why does Florida ban offshore drilling?

You can't build an offshore rig in a day. You can't build a pipeline in a day.

Again, we're in 1900, and all you can talk about is building more buggys and breeding more horses.

It's 2022, but you're living in the past.

What about the other points we've all made about Ukraine? Run away!

[gounion]

[ZoWie]

^LOL. Good old Tom Tomorrow. The guy who draws that lives in New York and I follow him online. A rather gloomy sort, really, but a very smart guy.

---

Joe can want all the oil he can imagine, but in the real world this oil will come from places that we really don't want controlling our economy. We had our bad experiences with the Middle East, and they practically ruined this country, now we seem hell bent on having a similarly bad experience with Russia.

Joe is of course right that the transition will be a long one, but it is inevitable. At some point climate change won't be a boon to Russia any more. They'll start feeling what anyone who grew up in a cooler, milder, less inflammatory LA feels. It won't be worth the money to them either. The Middle East, well it'll always be the Middle East methinks, and they'll institute free trade zones or whatever to keep profiting from their strategic location for navigation. They didn't get the image of rug merchants, to the point of that being an ethnic stereotype, for nothing. They're the trading people.

Here, as in Europe, there are other historical factors that we had best stop pretending don't exist. They've already started, and ignorance may be bliss but it's also death.

[gounion]

^LOL. Good old Tom Tomorrow. The guy who draws that lives in New York and I follow him online. A rather gloomy sort, really, but a very smart guy.

---

Joe can want all the oil he can imagine, but in the real world this oil will come from places that we really don't want controlling our economy. We had our bad experiences with the Middle East, and they practically ruined this country, now we seem hell bent on having a similarly bad experience with Russia.

Joe is of course right that the transition will be a long one, but it is inevitable. At some point climate change won't be a boon to Russia any more. They'll start feeling what anyone who grew up in a cooler, milder, less inflammatory LA feels. It won't be worth the money to them either. The Middle East, well it'll always be the Middle East methinks, and they'll institute free trade zones or whatever to keep profiting from their strategic location for navigation. They didn't get the image of rug merchants, to the point of that being an ethnic stereotype, for nothing. They're the trading people.

Here, as in Europe, there are other historical factors that we had best stop pretending don't exist. They've already started, and ignorance may be bliss but it's also death.

Of course, Joe doesn't believe in climate change either, do ya, Joe?

If we put our national will towards a new energy future, I think it's amazing what we can accomplish. But the right is the "we can't" America. We built the arsenal of freedom. We put a man on the moon in less than ten years.

Yeah, we could do it. We just need those with no vision, like Joe, to get the hell of the way.

[ZoWie]

The right is big on the "can't" word, but they like to rationalize it by saying that the reason we can't is because of all those damn libs who seem to want equal participation and human rights for any member of the genus homo species sapiens who is inside the country's borders.

The right is the "can't" people, and the "shoot 'em all, let God sort 'em out" people. They rationalize it with the mistaken idea that it's good for business.

[JoeMemphis]

^LOL. Good old Tom Tomorrow. The guy who draws that lives in New York and I follow him online. A rather gloomy sort, really, but a very smart guy.

---

Joe can want all the oil he can imagine, but in the real world this oil will come from places that we really don't want controlling our economy. We had our bad experiences with the Middle East, and they practically ruined this country, now we seem hell bent on having a similarly bad experience with Russia.

Joe is of course right that the transition will be a long one, but it is inevitable. At some point climate change won't be a boon to Russia any more. They'll start feeling what anyone who grew up in a cooler, milder, less inflammatory LA feels. It won't be worth the money to them either. The Middle East, well it'll always be the Middle East methinks, and they'll institute free trade zones or whatever to keep profiting from their strategic location for navigation. They didn't get the image of rug merchants, to the point of that being an ethnic stereotype, for nothing. They're the trading people.

Here, as in Europe, there are other historical factors that we had best stop pretending don't exist. They've already started, and ignorance may be bliss but it's also death.

In the real world Zowie we don’t just go from oil and gas to wind and solar quite so easily. It’s easier said than done. In the meantime in the real world, we all still need to go to work and heat our homes. In the real world, that all costs money and nits getting more expensive every day. In the real world. Yes we can works when you have the money to pay the difference. If you don’t it’s another story. Nobody is trying to make the case that we don’t need to develop alternatives. But in the meantime, people still have to live in the real world. That takes energy and money.