gearhog

Kash Confirmed. Reports of crowds scrambling to empty supermarket shelves of popcorn nationwide.

Weapons transfers to Ukraine are halted - Ukrainian MP Kostenko. The end is near. https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1892634846104608848

We don't need energy? False. Supply and demand. The more energy available on the global market affects price. China does need that energy. You're calling Ukraine a democracy. Explain to me how Ukraine is a democracy. What values are being abandoned? Meddling in foreign elections? Ensuring Ukrainians don't have a right to choose their fate? Debt spending to help overthrow foreign governments? Supplying weapons to enable the slaughter of soldiers and civilians on both sides? If everyone knows that, what exactly are you arguing? How many miles East or West the line will be drawn? You've just conceded Russia is going to retain some of Ukraine. Ukraine wasn't invited because they were never in charge of their own fate. The war goes the way the US goes. Maximal position? Huh? What does that mean? Do you really think any negotiated settlement would allow for the "waltzing" of Russia into Kiev? That makes zero sense. Let them fight. This is where I would agree with you. If it is, in fact, a fight between them... leave them to it. Let's completely disengage and see where the chips lie in a year. It is an undeniable fact that our leadership at the time had a hand in creating the conditions that led to this conflict and the death of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. Poor choices were made. We now have a chance to correct the mistakes and establish peace. https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1868662146122535098 How is it none of you Lindsey Graham neo-con pro-war advocates cheering for the killing of Russians will not acknowledge that it also necessitates the death of Ukrainians? If the Ukrainian cause is near and dear to your heart, why have you not made any voluntary sacrifices for it beyond posts on a message board? I don't believe you really care.

I'm still disgusted. Such talk is incredibly incompetent. A 50,000 word rebuttal instantly formed in my mind on the subject of moral character, but I'm gonna set that aside for now because I hesitate to dignify the above. Instead, I want to approach this from a different, less controversial angle. A few ideas. Here are some basic concepts: Obviously, we are at a critical moment in history. The more we find out about our financial system, the more we realize it's afflicted with various cancers. I think we'd all like to see the United States continue to be the greatest country on Earth. The only way we can achieve that is through prosperity and excising the tumors (bad policies) that are holding us back. Prosperity requires technology, resources, and a capacity to produce. We're also embarking on a period of potential technological advancements that will fundamentally change our world. There's a race on for that technology. Problem 1: The race for that technology requires economic investment. Who has the capacity to challenge our ability to invest in it? Look at this chart and think about how we choose who is and isn't on our team. Who do we cooperate and not cooperate with? Who is already on our team? Who do we spend money on bringing into the fold or relegating to the other side? Problem 2: The energy required run our existing economy is massive. The technology coming from AI, quantum computing, chip manufacturing, and downstream techs require incredible amounts of additional energy. You can't have unlimited growth in a world of finite resources. Thus, competition. Where do we find that energy? We need it now, not however many years into the future it takes to build nuke plants. Where does it lie? Problem 3: Who poses an existential threat to the US? First, what makes the US the US? I'd say a way of life based upon the principles of the Constitution. To find out who our enemy is, ask which countries operate in ways that are the most far removed from the way we want to live. Isn't the most glaring answer to that question China? We don't want anything to do with that system of government. Do we want to live in an Islamic Caliphate, either? We're even watching Europe devolve a collection of leftist governments. The real threats to you and I should be calculated and sorted as: Economic power + Access to energy + System of government disparity. Russia has little economic power, but has massive energy reserves. Their system of government sucks, Putin sucks, but it is not nearly as shitty as others with greater economic power. Put Ukrainians, Russians, Europeans, Americans in room together. You'd have a very difficult time sorting who's who on the basis of the things they value. Russia's energy is going to flow somewhere. Do you think it's just going to stay in the ground? Say Russia collapses. What are we going to do, occupy Russia to deny China's access to energy when they share a border? We are driving Russia into the arms of China, with or without Putin. War destroys prosperity. A nation will gravitate towards relationships that give them prosperity. The most logical approach is to create a security agreement where we stand to gain prosperity from the ability to purchase energy while they stand to gain prosperity from selling it. Why do we want to make China more prosperous? There is a time and place for conflict. But for 20 years I was directly involved in wars that were fought, but never decisively won. Our country experienced a near-exponential increase in debt while our leadership saw a near-exponential increase in wealth while on a government paycheck, all while people here still believe it's all been a net-benefit for our citizens. That's a pretty impressive jedi mind trick. Negotiate an end to the conflict. Start from scratch. Create a comprehensive security agreement that guarantees mutual economic benefits and access to energy while denying China the ability to become and even greater threat.

This is the most honest/understandable representation of the pro-war side of the argument: Cheering for the feeding of an entire society into the wood chipper. https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1630672196510138377

If you’ve paid attention to the facts instead of your feelings, there have been signposts since the beginning indicating the direction this is headed. As I said, you can oppose the reality of what’s happening with fantasies of complete Russian withdrawal/collapse, but you’ll only be upset/embarrassed when it never happens. The outcome is dictated by logic, not your notion of right/wrong.

You really need to decide if your are for or against personal attacks. If you bitch about it then engage in name calling, it makes you looks like a hypocrite. You can wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills first. It doesn't matter what you think is correct. You really think Crimea is going back to Ukraine? Delusional. LOL You've gotta be drunk. Unintelligible. "Gear cards" and asterisks? You're just asking random pointless nonsense questions. Do you even have a point here? You mean like Cold Stone Austin Steve? Did you intend to say "Trump wins more if Putin wins less?" You should read what you write before you click the submit reply button. Or at least edit your mistakes. I've seen these symptoms before. You might be having a Baseops meltdown.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that the line "We do not support Taiwan independence" was purchased illegally by a foreign adversary from a fifth column here in the US.

US State Department position on Taiwan Before & After

Stop whining. You're behaving like someone's jaded ex-girlfriend keeping a list of all their grievances. Those are all verifiable statements of fact. Just because you keep begging me to repeat myself doesn't mean I'm going to do it. You can't always get what you want. However, I will give you some new and original thoughts for you to bitch about: I can continue to write lengthy posts about what I think is right or correct. It doesn't matter now. There's a time for putting those ideas an opinions out in the public space to influence the planning process. It's over. It was over when Trump was elected. We're now in the implementation phase. Whatever your feelings and emotions are, they're worthless. You're going to have to live with whatever is decided for you. It should be apparent by now is at least attempting to deliver on campaign promises. Ending the war in Ukraine was a big one. He's ego-driven and I think he's motivated to fulfill those promises not always because the orders/actions themselves are the right thing to do, but because he knows just doing what he said he was going to do garners him an enormous amount of credibility and support. Perhaps not from you, but ...shrug. So, he said he was going to end it and he feels he must deliver on it. He mentions it in nearly every major press briefing. He also expresses regret for the "millions of soldiers" dying in the conflict. The problem here is he made a promise without conditions, and he seems to have taken direct military engagement off the table. This shifts the negotiating power-position somewhat toward Russia. Putin has made no promises and continues to demonstrate he'll fight it out on the battlefield indefinitely. Putin knows he can use this leverage to get Trump to make some concessions. Neither are going to capitulate fully. The most probable outcome is no NATO for Ukraine, Russia gets to keep Crimea and a significant portion of the land it fought over, and some easing of sanctions. We get to cease dumping billions of taxpayer dollars into this mess and get security guarantees from Russia that it won't invade Europe, pursue BRICs and other economic threats. Russia wasn't going to invade Europe anyway, but we can wave it around as if is a big win for us. Is it not reasonable to assume that Trump will continue the war without giving Russia a significant amount of its asks. Happy? You're just gonna have to prepare yourself to transition from pissing and moaning about what I believe should happen to pissing and moaning about what has actually happened. It's out of our hands.

First, calm down. You're getting emotional again. There is no good reason to type in all caps. Ever. Second, you've whined about me writing too much, yet you seem to not have read any of it. For three years now, I've written quite a bit on what I believe should and should not be done in this conflict. In an earlier post today, I even spoon fed you the steps to searching this thread for what I've written on the subject. Why should I be obligated to rehash what I've already said multiple times just because you're too lazy or too ill-equipped to read a few pages back? I can give you several examples of you using personal attacks recently, but it's only a problem when you're accusing someone else? That's both hypocrisy and projection. Remember: You referred to yourself as a dumbass. I have never called you any such thing. I think there's a good chance your opinion of yourself is lower than my opinion of you, thus the overcompensation and anger. I am not to blame for your low self-confidence.

I don't consider that a proper apology or admission of a mistake. But, I am happy to let the record show that you called yourself a dumbass, not me. What is the alternative to letting Russia keep it? Asking super nicely for them to give it up? Making demands? Or are you personally volunteering to join the fight to take it? I think it's more likely that your are volunteering someone else to fight to get it back. The right thing to do is not continue to push others to their death over rural Ukraine real estate you really care nothing about. As for the rest of your post... your Asperger's is showing.

I'll agree. It shouldn't have taken until a few hours ago to open up 625 million acres to energy drilling. I would like to have seen that on day 1. Trump has fallen short of my expectations with regard to timing, but the job is still getting done. https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1890539295343055120

Correct. The calculus in attacking a NATO member country vs a non-member country is not the same. Trump was absolutely wrong when he said it would take one day. I knew that was BS. How many promises did he deliver on day 1? I was disappointed that it took several days for some of his EOs. There are still things he hasn't done. There has been no announcements of additional Ukr funding since day 1, however. Although that's a partial fulfillment of the promise, it's not full delivery. If he never delivers on the promise to end the war, I will have a problem with that. If it takes 6 months, I will have a problem with that. If it takes until the end of next week to come to an agreement, I'll be happy to concede to you that it took one month instead of one day.

What was that promise you're referencing?

Taking an NVG checkride around a busy airport with that much cultural lighting seems odd to me.

I'll type volumes in the time it takes you to try and concoct a single witty reply. I've been doing this for far longer than you've been on the forum. You're attacking me because you're inadequately equipped to attack the specifics of my position. Me being able to articulate my thoughts more broadly than you is somehow a negative? It takes near zero effort on my part. You couldn't write a cookbook. You "think" I'm the one that commented on your username? You'd be wrong, because I've never made any reference to it. It would have taken you 10 seconds to search and realize it wasn't me. It only serves to demonstrate that the things you think you know are wrong. You're willing to run with some BS you think you know, only to be embarrassed later when proven that you don't. I don't get why you would do that unless... (and there's only one possible reason) you just don't have to capability to read and retain info. In other words: You're not a smart person. What I'm rooting for has nothing to do with Trump or Pete. I'm rooting for the things I think are correct. If they happen to be on the same side, I'll openly express my appreciation. If they're not, I'll abandon them as fast as all your masculine role models abandoned you. This mess was created by an entirely different administration. Opting not to double down on someone else's failed misadventure is not a "cave job", it's minimizing losses. Your attitude would indicate to me that you're not good with money among other things. You cannot admit a bad investment. And because you're failing in your argument on this issue, you're trying to inject irrelevant topics into the conversation just so they can backfire on you as well. "Why haven't they fixed in three weeks problems that took 4 years to create?!?!" As I said, you're not among the most brilliant I've had a conversation with. You're beginning to make nsplayer look like a member of Mensa.

Notice I changed his "mug" to my avatar only after you previously accused me of being a shill for him. It was incredibly easy to predict it would trigger you into commenting on it. If I can manipulate a response from you using only a picture, you can be manipulated in a variety of other ways, and obviously are. Either you can't read, or you can't retain information. Over the past three years, at least five people in this thread have accused me of supporting Russia in nearly the exact same way you are. You're inauthentic, and you're slow. At the top of the page is a search bar. Use the advanced search function. Click + More Search Options. Click + Search by Author. You'll find I've dispensed with that ridiculous accusation numerous times and you're just the latest in a string of ineffectuals that are unable argue that accusation beyond the initial "Duh... u support RuSsIA!!1". We're running a trillion dollar deficit every 90 days and you're arguing we're delivering an economic smackdown? To whom? Ourselves? As a result of the conflict and sanctions, Russia is running a wartime economy. They've been forced to move their supply chains in house, build factories, boost their war-fighting production capacity, and are still flooding the front lines with war-fighting equipment. Reminder that WWI Germany was defeated and hamstrung, and the only thing it did was sharpen their resolve. You have the foresight of a Labrador puppy.

That rationale is about 1mm deep. If Russia is no longer a threat, what was the specific threat before? Did they have the capacity to invade a neighboring NATO country? One can say they did, but we baited them into burning it in Ukraine - and somehow that's better. So did we create the conditions whereas we knew Russia would invade Ukraine and let Ukraine send hundreds of thousands of their citizens to the slaughter? That's a pretty diabolical plan to mitigate a risk that was never quantifiable and a benefit to you and me that cannot be measured. We do have a measurable amount of wealth invested in this "threat", but there is no measurable benefit. None. It's the same logical fallacy that people continuously fall for. "Ok, so you still suffered ill effects of this measure of protection, but just imagine how much worse it would have been had we not?" We indebted ourselves to the tune of hundreds of billions, enriched con artists beyond imagination, and have been tricked into believing we're all better off for it. Nonsense. We're now seeing this same tactic has been used across the board. On multiple issues, in multiple facets of our government. The threat was made up so you would lend support to what was obviously a scam. And there is another age-old universal human flaw that allows the scam to work: “It is easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled” - Mark Twain. It's pride, no one wants to admit that someone else was able to pull the wool over on them, so they'll go to great lengths to prevaricate and rationalize it.

It's still unbelievable to me that anyone ever thought our involvement in this conflict was winnable, or that the intent was ever to "win" against Russia. I've been arguing this for 3 years. The net result will be a loss to the West. It just is what it is. The security and interests of the American people were never a factor in Ukraine. It always was a corrupt state ripe for the manipulation and exploitation by people who stood to gain billions of dollars. All of us have been conditioned to think since childhood that Russia was capable superpower bent on world domination. And even after it has been demonstrated that they don't have that conventional capability, the propaganda still works. People still believe it. Zelensky himself said he doesn't know where $100 billion dollars went. It was allocated by our leadership, but it never showed up. The Ukrainian media themselves just admitted they were 90% funded by foreign interests such as USAID. How many times are we going to be "gotten" by these giant scams? It's now being reported that nearly every department of our government is rife with scams, lies, corruption, waste, etc. But they got this one right? The same propaganda machine that suckered half the population during COVID was the same propaganda machine that was pushing funding for this war. I understand how it works. It's a compelling belief: We're the noble good guys fighting to the good fight against the forces of evil. That's what I always believed in the early stages of my career. Eventually, you've gotta grow up a little bit and face reality. “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts." Now that this whole thing is being dismantled, we're gonna have people equivocating and performing these amazing feats of logical gymnastics. "We were just trying to drain the Russian economy, not really win." So we spent hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayer money, half of it vanishes to who knows where before it made it to the battlefield, and the ROI is massive because a million Russians and Ukrainian men were killed? There is no ROI for you and me. None. What is our record for direct US engagement in third world foreign conflicts recently? How is Iraq doing? How is Afghanistan doing? How is Libya? How is Syria? But somehow we expect that if don't directly engage and instead give Ukraine hundreds of billions in money and equipment to fight a conventional conflict against an enemy that isn't a third world shithole --- that they're going to have a better result? It's mind-numbingly ridiculous to even think there was a reasonable expectation this was going to go well for the "good guys". Draw the border on the front lines. Let Russia boast over their acquisition of a few hundred km2 of destroyed rural farmland. The real benefit to the US will be the cessation of wasted $billions.

This decision has sparked mass protests* from military families. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-protest-dei-transgender-germany-military-rcna191636 * “about 2 dozen people”

We’re gonna see a lot of news from this office in the next few weeks.

I didn't realize this. Bad leadership doesn't just retire, they go on to assist screwing up billion dollar industries.

There was an executive order issued today to initiate the protection of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/protecting-second-amendment-rights/ By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose. The Second Amendment is an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty. It has preserved the right of the American people to protect ourselves, our families, and our freedoms since the founding of our great Nation. Because it is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed. Sec. 2. Plan of Action. (a) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General shall examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens, and present a proposed plan of action to the President, through the Domestic Policy Advisor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.