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If you check out the author’s bio, he doesn’t sound like a Republican sympathizer to me. You pick a tiny bit of incoherence in the article and dismiss it entirely? You’re the one who sounds like they’ve got a slant. You didn’t even finish the piece. You sound like you’re dismissing it simply because you don’t like what it’s saying. That’s bad information consumption.

I read the article. It seems like some leftist organizations screwed the State by threatening to sue them and accuse them of racism if they didn’t approve the aid applications, so the State—not wanting to get sued, have bad press, and potentially alienate Democrats-supporting voters—approved the applications without thoroughly checking them, and thus allowing fraudulent applications to slip through.

There’s no Republican attack in there, it’s just facts. Now, it’s absolute gold to their Republican opponents, which is a shame in my view, but it’s no reason to deny the truth. Waltz and his government need to keep their goals the same but improve their implementation, and leftist organizations need to stop eating our own with frivolous, politically-motivated lawsuits.

We just gave Minnesota Republicans uranium-tipped bullets via our own fuck up. We need to stop doing that.

EDIT: And apparently voters in this sub prefer a ton of copium.

My understanding was that it’s only legal under highly restricted conditions. If you’re just Joe Schmoe, you’re not going to be able to get a firearm just because you have no criminal history and no evidence of mental illness.

I know plenty of people on the Left who want to ban guns, European-style. They think anyone who owns one is partially psychopathic and have a fetish about killing things. You’re right, they’re probably in the minority, but I question by just how much. I don’t think they’re as fringe as some people would like to believe.

I’m a Democrat who values the 2nd amendment and doesn’t think we should just ban guns in the U.S. Stronger regulations and safety measures? Sure, absolutely. But I do think people should have the right to own and use firearms for recreation, hunting, personal protection, etc.

Dual-vector foil from the Three Body Problem series. Everything just gets lethally downgraded from three-dimensional to two-dimensional.

Fairest apocalypse because notice was posted.

When the rest of the world hates you for shit a minority of your country did, but succumb to generalized thinking and blame all Americans (looking at you, Europe), a guilt complex can be internalized.

Russia has already ground through much of its resources in Ukraine and it’s not making meaningful advances. It doesn’t have the resources to attack other nations on top of that.

And European countries could easily cripple the Russian war machine with precision strikes, hit major resource production centers, infrastructure, etc.

But more to the point, once it’s Russia vs. Europe, Russian support for Putin’s war (because it is his war) will evaporate near-instantly, and he will be killed. Europe doesn’t have to decapitate Russia; the Russians will do that.

LOL, Putin’s war in Ukraine has demonstrated quite clearly the value of the Russian military. There’s a reason he’s terrified of NATO. Ukraine has held off Russia’s “superior” might with civilian-grade drones. Any actual military response from NATO would crush Russia like a brick through wet tissue paper.

Does Russia? Even Putin knows that if he presses the big red button, it’s open season on him—not just a potential nuclear response from the outside but a nice, quiet defenestration from within. I think Russia will stick to conventional warfare as long as possible.

I agree, but only about the star of Earth in that series. The Epstein drive, protomolecule, even the colonization of Mars are all not guaranteed futures in my view. But if we keep going to way we are, yeah, I can see a 50+% unemployment rate and lots of brutalist architecture.

I don’t care about leaving a legacy. I’m here to enjoy myself as much as possible in this very fucked up world.

Maybe the next president can shoot Trump in the dome and say it was an official act to protect national security secrets.

Joking, obviously, but it’s fun to fantasize.

Seriously. If all of Western Europe ganged up on Russia, it would fold instantaneously. Bullies isolate their victims. Don’t let them do that and they show their true colors.

That’s not a counter argument. “They” don’t call China a communist state; China does. Nowhere does the United States call itself a straight democracy. It refers to itself as a republic.

No, it’s a republic.

No, see, what you’re doing is making a No True Scotsman argument. Nothing is communism to you unless it achieves the pristine results dictated by the ideal, so any actual attempt that fails, you dismiss as “not communism,” rather than admit that communism is a flawed system that has always produced bad results at scale.

Communism mandates a single-party government, which inevitably becomes a corrupt dictatorship that does not follow the idealized plan. But that’s the problem: the plan is too idealistic and doesn’t account for human psychology. So, you can’t just say, “oh, that society isn’t communist because the outcomes aren’t right. Name one example of a communist country that actually produces the results you expect to see.