ASL Veteran

I mean, really Canada has already basically withdrawn from NATO hasn't it? Can you be considered a serious NATO member when your government says that not only will they not spend 2% on defense but they will never spend 2%.

This is a bad take my friend. I don't really want to go 'there', but the simple fact is that the open US border is a feature not a bug and the Senate version of border security had several poison pills in it that would make things worse. The issue I have is that House demands for border security is an exercise in tilting at windmills. It doesn't matter how many 'extra' border patrol agents you have if all you are doing is catching and releasing people into the US after they swim over the Rio Grande. It doesn't matter how many laws are on the books if the enforcement agency chooses to look the other way. Oh, but why would the current administration want an open border you might ask? That's tinfoil hat wingnut stuff right there. ASL is gong completely off the rails. Let's just count the reasons. 1. The number of seats in the House is determined by population. Guess what? It's not determined by population of US citizens because citizenship is not determined by the census. Therefore if someone from China crosses the border between California and Mexico that Chinese citizen counts towards the population of California in terms of Congressional apportionment. As of the 2020 census, there are 761,169 people per congressional district. If you let 10 million 'migrants' into the US that's approximately 13 seats in congress. Guess where the 'migrants' tend to go? Sanctuary cities. Guess where the sanctuary cities are? Democratic strongholds. 2. Why just stop at counting non citizens in the census? Why not just let them vote even if they aren't citizens? In California non citizens are issued driver's licenses. Various local Democratic strongholds have passed laws allowing non citizens to vote. The example in the video from DC below is just one example, but there are others. Oh, but those are just for local elections - yeah, and guess what else is on the ballot when the local elections are being held. One would think that the citizens of Washington DC wouldn't want the Russian ambassador voting who becomes the mayor, but here we are. 3. If you can't pass a law allowing non citizens to vote though - how about just making it difficult to sort out who is a citizen and who isn't a citizen? Use voter registration laws that don't require full social security numbers (some states only require the last four digits or they decide not to verify a social security number) and use the US attorney general's office to sue states trying to pass voter ID laws. Who is the least likely person to have an ID in the United States? A non citizen of course. 4. If you are someone who is of a mind to swim the Rio Grande and you know which political party is handing you cash then who are you going to vote for in the next election (even though you shouldn't be able to vote, but if you are a non citizen and you want to vote in an election where the democratic party is in control - well we should be welcoming to our 'migrant' friends). New York City is giving every 'migrant' a government debit card with a 1000 bucks a month on it, along with other benefits totaling somewhere around 2400 bucks a month I think - I'm going from memory here. 5. I'm posting against my better judgement because I know how this forum tilts. How someone reacts to this post will probably be determined by whether or not you like Republicans. However, if a political party in your country - wherever you may be from - is willing to try and cement a permanent hold on political power through the use of non citizens I think most would object to that if you were on the receiving end of that political strategy. Even traditional Democrat voting blocks are starting to shift.

Not trying to move the thread off topic any more than it already has, but apparently US, UK, and French forces (ships I suppose) as well as Saudi and Jordanian forces are assisting in intercepting Iranian drones and missiles. I just thought that was interesting. I also saw something about 'stuff' happening inside Iran, but I haven't watched or read enough about it to know what's going on exactly.

A few days ago I read somewhere that Speaker Johnson intends to bring the Ukraine / Israel / Taiwan aide package to a vote when congress returns. I haven't heard that any of the Republicans that supported removing the previous speaker would support MTG's move to vacate the current speaker. However, the main reason the previous Speaker was ousted was because Democrats supported the Republicans who voted to vacate. In theory MTG's out on an island and irrelevant so she wouldn't matter if Speaker Johnson could rely on Democrats not supporting MTG because she doesn't have enough (or maybe any) support from other Republicans. However, one can't really expect that Democrats wouldn't vote in favor of vacating the position since - well why not? Also, maybe Hakeem Jefferies can become the Speaker? So the bottom line seems to be - if one Republican (MTG) moves to vacate the Speaker position and every Democrat votes in favor of that then Johnson would not survive and there is absolutely no incentive for Democrats to support Johnson. The only way the aid package can move forward is if Johnson can convince MTG that bringing the package to a vote would either be in her best interests or that Republicans would benefit in general. Without Democrats though MTG would be irrelevant. There should be some special elections coming up for all the Republicans who essentially quit (angry about the removal of the previous Speaker) and reduced the size of the majority. If they retain those seats (I don't think any of those seats are projected to flip for any reason) then maybe the majority can be restored sufficiently such that MTG can't vacate the Speaker position with just herself and Democrats, but that wouldn't be until June I think. I haven't been paying super close attention to political maneuvering though so I might not be 100% accurate on this.

People tend to believe in things that reinforce their worldviews and disbelieve things that don't fit within that worldview. Everyone has a weakness that can be exploited by someone else.

I think it might be time for some drone footage straight from the front lines:

Except that terrorist acts aren't committed with a specific reaction in mind. Terrorist acts are committed with a specific goal in mind. The goals of Hamas are not comparable to the goals of ISIS and there is no possible reconciliation between Israel and Hamas. Hamas doesn't need to create acts of terrorism in order to gain Palestinian recruits. Polls, for what they are worth, show that Hamas has somewhere upwards of 70 percent favorability to the citizens of Gaza so they don't need to convince anyone. Everyone in their neighborhood is already signed up. No, the only people Hamas needs to recruit are non Palestinians to buy what they are selling so that they can continue to attack Israel and convince the international community to condemn Israel for defending itself. Therefore the goal of Hamas is to attack Israel, claim that Israel is filled with genocidal Nazi colonizers who rape and pillage for entertainment, and hope that eventually either they can remove Israel from the face of the earth themselves, or that the international community will do it for them. The only way Israel can end the cycle is to completely destroy Hamas and replace them with a government structure that's more amenable to compromise, because if they don't Hamas will just attack again as soon as they are able and we'll be right back where we are again today. ISIS isn't concerned so much with Israel. Their goals are more comprehensive. How does an attack inside Russia advance the goal of the restoration of the caliphate I'm not really sure, but they have launched attacks in Iran recently too and Russia has / had troops in Syria so maybe it's not all that complicated. I don't want to get this thread sidetracked though and I know how badly this topic can spin out of control so I think I'll just leave it there. 3. What are Hamas’ aims? What Hamas plainly seeks is the establishment of a Palestinian state. Where there is doubt is over the territory in which it envisages the establishment of the state, since it initially called for a Palestinian state occupying the West Bank, Gaza and the space now occupied by the state of Israel. In fact, they violently opposed the 1993 Oslo peace accords between the Palestine National Liberation Organisation and the State of Israel. Accordingly, they initially refused to form part of the Palestinian National Authority, which was beginning to gain international –though not unanimous– recognition as the legitimate Palestinian authority and the blueprint for the future Palestinian state. 4. Does Hamas recognise Israel? Although public statements by Hamas leaders vary, its denial of the legitimacy of the state of Israel has been a constant point of friction in the region. Important doctrines of ISIL include its belief that it represents the restoration of the caliphate of early Islam, and that all Muslims are required to pledge allegiance to it;[9] that a "defiled" Islam must be purged of apostasy, often with bloody sectarian killings,[10] that the final Day of Judgment by God is near and will follow the defeat of the army of "Rome" by IS;[2] that a strict adherence to following the precepts "established by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers" is necessary, surpassing even that of other Salafi-Jihadi groups.[2]

Whether oil prices are / will be affected or not isn't really known at this time. Even the activity of the Houthis could be having an impact and / or it's also possible that this type of activity is already baked into the price (commodities traders are going to anticipate stuff and price it into the Bid Ask spread if oil has a spread - I'm pretty confident that it does, but it's not exactly easy to pull up an actual trading price online). I can't imagine that the current administration would go this route for that reason unless it was already having a discernable impact and that impact was having an obvious effect on the electorate. No, I actually don't think you are being cynical enough! I think I'll leave it there though cause we really don't want to be having that discussion I think lol.

Without tossing various names into the discussion and whether the US is exporting or importing here is what the CEIC says the US was producing since 2011. If you select the 'Max' button you can see what the US has been producing since 1960. This is also a discussion that drives up the blood pressure of certain forum contributors so best to move on to something else if we want another game created. US Crude Oil: Production, 1960 – 2023 | CEIC Data

Solving the manpower crisis

Who is sponsoring the discharge petition? If it's a Democrat I wouldn't put too much into that - it's possible it could go through, but every Republican who pushes this forward is basically torpedoing the speaker's authority and he would then become ineffective at moving future legislation going forward (the Speaker of the House must be able to get his caucus to agree to different things to pass legislation and if his authority is undermined then he would be ineffective). So that basically means the Republicans would need to find a new Speaker. I'm not sure how many Republicans want to go through that again just to pass this (as important as this is to some here, the US has a lot of big issues to tackle). Besides, none of us on this board know what's going on within the Republican caucus - the leadership likely already has a plan / agreement on what to do. There are a lot of Democrats who will refuse to vote for this as well simply because they don't want to agree to anything that sends money to Israel. I haven't seen anyone talking / writing about this Discharge Petition and if nobody is talking about it then I doubt it has any legs - but we'll see. The votes might be there to pass it if the Speaker brings it to the floor, but just because the votes might there for regular order that doesn't mean that a Discharge Petition will succeed. Even if every Democrat signed it (and not every one will) you would basically have to get enough Republicans to sign on and then look for a new Speaker of the House.

In this context my assumption would be that the Russian assets would be used as a form of collateral and since they mention 'Surety' then I would say as collateral vs a form of Surety bond (a bond is a form of loan - when you buy a corporate bond you are essentially loaning the issuing company money in exchange for an interest payment) sort of deal and since they mention reparations perhaps they could demand some form of reparations in exchange for getting their assets returned when this whole thing is finally over.

The Pentagon's budget will need a continuing resolution passed sometime around March 22 if a regular budget can't be agreed upon (which is doubtful so they have to keep passing continuing resolutions to keep last year's budget going). More than likely the Ukraine / Israel / random other stuff aide package will be resolved around that time since it's likely going to be folded into all the other defense spending (that's what I've read anyway and it makes sense).

Shell hunger is nothing new. Some may recall reading about 'We Shall Shell' pamphlets circulated during WW1 while attempts were made to ramp up production. The other half of the equation is barrel wear. I'm pretty confident that these barrels are being pushed to their limits and accuracy must suffer. Also much of Ukraine's artillery is 122, 152, and 130 so when the EU puts the stipulation that whatever they will supply will be domestically produced - well that's mostly going to be NATO standard 155. However, even with every NATO member nation basically producing the same thing they could still only deliver half of what was promised.