Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by Mel Maki

Biden is sinking the Dem ship and you are listening to Caspar Milquetoast acting like Trump is running again? He isn't. He is too old! Why can't people admit Biden and Trump no longer have the presence of mind our president requires? 

From your lips to God's ears Mel.  I would love to see these two old codgers not run in 24.  Both have said they would though.  Why do you think they won't?  

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

No doubt there.  I haven't read anything about her, so I'll take a look at her links.  

I do agree that the Repubs should just sail her through, unless she's some sort of a far left radical.  

They aren't going to get better than a reasonable lefty no matter how hard they try, and I haven't read about her, so I don't know if I'd find her .  

And I do hope they don't act like the scumbag Dems in the past who when Clarence Thomas's nomination was up.

That was the point when the nomination process was bastardized by the Dems.

Here's good National Review article about it.

The Dems have now, and never have had any shame whatsoever.  

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/joe-biden-owes-clarence-thomas-apology/

That NR review article led to this one, which I am reading now.  Seems reasonable so far:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/02/how-republicans-should-respond-to-ketanji-brown-jackson/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-in&utm_term=first

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Here's how the Republicans are responding:
"Senate Republicans launched their attacks on Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee, before the President officially announced his pick on Friday, portraying her as a pawn of the Left."
"Republicans criticized her educational background,"
"Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who voted for Jackson to serve as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit eight months ago, appeared to unfavorably consider her nomination, saying in a tweet that "the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again."
Now that's a class act...
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/politics/republicans-biden-supreme-court-nominee/index.html

Did you read the whole article Rod?  This CNN piece is classic "Republicans Attack!" garbage.  There are no quotes from Rs saying anything derogatory about the nominee.  There is actually some very favorable stuff about her from Republicans.  CNN can not help themselves, they assume (hope and pray) the Rs will attack, so they go ahead and write the "Republicans Attack" article with no substance in it at all.

Jim

Wow Jim, that is a scary story!  Wishing you a speedy and complete recovery!  Jim

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Thank you Russ.  

I hope we (the USA) can help to defeat any and all the fiends in this world and V. Putin is an extraordinarily evil one. 

Contrary to my initial commentary, I have decided to put all politics aside and support any efforts we make.  

Seeing the civilians in Ukraine taking up arms is heartening and at the same time sad to see them have to do so against a purely evil thug like Putin.

PUTIN is responsible for this aggression and nobody else.    

Thanks for the refreshing thread guys.  It is always good to hear from you Russ.  I appreciate and agree with your comments above, Richard.
  
Jim

Originally Posted by James Lacey

I've been reading about this and looking at what is available on it, and that's not a convoy, it's a traffic jam. They moved 3 km yesterday in total. If the Ukrainians had a better air force capability they would all be toast. I have to say, the Russian military is turning out to be a bit of paper-tiger. It's six days in and they still don't have air superiority? The Ukrainians are still operating propeller-driven drones and taking out their armored vehicles? This is quite embarrassing for the Russians.

Hi James:

I agree, in addition the sanctions are apparently hitting extremely hard. 

But this all makes me even more uneasy.  There is some non-zero chance that Putin has become a genuine madman, not just a rhetorical madman.  If he is pushed into a corner, the chance of him using tactical nukes or otherwise escalating the conflict increase.  Trust me, I certainly believe and hope that his move to nuclear readiness is, as I think Greg called it, saber rattling.  He is used to getting his way.  But what if it is not?  That said, I don't think Ukraine and her allies and supporters have much choice but to push on with the battle locally and the sanctions globally.

Jim

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

Rod, you seem to put most everything through a Trump sieve. I’d actually be interested in your thoughts looking past that history.

A Trump sieve, or as Jim M notes, a HRC sieve is apparently the American way. 

My wife and I were in the car for a couple hours yesterday and wanted to listen to news about the war.  We were driving through Chaffee and Park Counties in CO, which are beautiful, but empty.  That means Sirius XM or a couple of rinky-dink local rock and country stations.  We have 4 news choices on our Sirius "favorites":  CNN Headline News, Fox Headline News, NPR, and the BBC World Service News.

For the short period we listened to CNN, it was all about Trump and the January 6 commission.  Ho Hum.  On Fox, it was all about Biden, and inflation, someone was talking about the shortcomings of the SOU speech still.  Yawn.  The juxtaposition with BBC World Service News was amazing. 

On the BBC there was sober and in-depth coverage of the war, with several experts discussing the developments on a minute by minute timescale.  They seemed pretty careful to separate what was fact from what was preliminary but unconfirmed intelligence.  Then they had a lengthy interview with a top reporter (maybe a founder) at Ekho Moskvy (the Echo of Moscow).   Ekho Moskvy was the leading independent radio station in Russia since 1990 and had literally been shut down by the Kremlin hours before.   The correspondent had no hesitation describing the lies broadcast from the Kremlin's propaganda machine.  she was frustrated with the Russian people since far too many of them buy into the party line.  (Think about that in the US context).  The only optimism this poor woman could muster was that she believes it impossible to totally shut off the flow of truth in Russia in 2022 because of the internet and social media.  Ekho Moskvy still has a you-tube channel. 

This was gripping radio.  The correspondent was expecting to be arrested imminently!  You could see in your mind's eye the KGB kicking in her office door.  The contrast between the soft partisan crap broadcast by CNN and Fox in the same format at the same time couldn't be more stark.  

Jim 

p.s.  I see that the US print media is reporting the seizure of all dissenting broadcasters in Russia.  https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-03-03/russias-top-radio-station-shut-amid-crackdown-on-dissent  There is no doubt that Putin has fully returned to his roots.  The only issues now are whether he stops with Ukraine, and whether the Russian people will ultimately stand for it, or if indeed the majority fully supports the return of the Soviet Union.

Originally Posted by Mel Maki

Very simple, but difficult to argue against.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499442168699760643.html

I agree that Kasparov is persuasive.  Still, he is arguing for Nato to engage in full-scale war with Russia.  He argues that it is now or later and the price always goes up.  

Do you agree with that?  Is a shooting war with Russia in Poland, Estonia, or elsewhere inevitable?  Is it better to face him now, rather than later if facing him is inevitable?  I certainly do not know, but I would much rather have the sanctions back him down, or maybe some sort of coup take him out, rather than risk nuclear retaliation if Nato were able to crush him in conventional warfare.  Jim

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

You probably could. My daughter recently sold her Kia Soul GT turbo that she had bought new in 2020 for more than she paid for it at the time! Enough to make a good deal on a new Subaru CrossTrek Sport with Dual X-Mode which she had to order from the factory in Japan and arrived at the dealership and into my daughter's hands two weeks ago. She wants to do some mild off roading around Joshua Tree and similar areas and now she'll be able to while getting good gas mileage to boot!

I love Subarus.  I'm not driving one myself right now, but both sons are and always have.  Over the past decade or so, they have each walked away from nasty wrecks that totaled their Subarus.  One with a large bull elk, very scary. The other was another car, a dead-center driver's side T-bone job that rolled the Subaru all the way over the passenger side and back onto the wheels.  No injuries at all.  Except for the elk, he didn't make it.  Knock on wood, prayers, and more.  Maybe any modern car would have done just as well, but Subaru has our loyalty forever.  Our specialty has been to buy 6 or 7 year old high-mileage Outbacks.  Perfect for Colorado.  Used to be able to get one for about $2000 bucks.  Not anymore!

Jim

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Really? Care to name them?

I'm not sure who Mel had in mind, but FDR seems like a reasonable choice.  Maybe Kennedy.  FWIW, I don't buy into the "Putin would never had done this if Trump were president" rhetoric.  Also, I don't have anything specific to criticize Biden over, with respect to Ukraine.  He does need to keep the hammer down on the sanctions.  Jim