MikeyD

Gotta hand it to Luakshenko, he's managed to not fall out of any hospital windows despite dragging his heels on active war support. I guess his excuse now is 'But you've already taken all of our warfighting stocks!' I assume the Belarus army would be down to five artillery shells total by now.

As someone who DOES basically think the border not being open is close to fascist, you're patently and categorically mischaracterizing the Dems and the state of the border. As someone who has regularly traveled back and forth across it, I haven't the slightest idea what you mean. There's so much law enforcement and much of Republican policy from trump and every previous deportation  happy administration is intact. Biden could put HIMARS and land mines on the border and Republicans would ask why he won't start a special military operation in Juarez.

"border security" is just a hoax to the public. The real reasons for blocking aid to Ukraine is the decline in the popularity of Biden and the Democrats. Democrats know full well that even after they agree to Republican demands for border security, Republicans will still block aid to Ukraine for new flimsy reasons. For example, Ukraine does not have a plan for victory, show us the plan. That's why Democrats are in no hurry to agree to demands for border security.

I'm not sure what you think you are achieving by presenting these background views from the "normal" ?  Ukrainian citizen point of view  ?   Encouraging the idea that  the support of the Ukrainians for this fightback against the Russians is in fact collapsing and  now everyone just wishes to be done with the thing and return to being Citizens of the Greater Russian Empire ? . In other times and other places   comments such as yours would be deemed material evidence of working with the Enemy ?
 
Baffled .

We might as well throw in Fascist Cuba at the time and the very-nearly-implemented 1933 Fascist coup against the US government by a fellow named Prescott Bush, while we're at it.

We might as well throw in Fascist Cuba at the time and the very-nearly-implemented 1933 Fascist coup against the US government by a fellow named Prescott Bush, while we're at it.

We might as well throw in Fascist Cuba at the time and the very-nearly-implemented 1933 Fascist coup against the US government by a fellow named Prescott Bush, while we're at it.

In my opinion, this well explains the position of the Republicans regarding assistance to Ukraine. 

The Republicans are essentially a revolutionary movement at this point and are going way beyond what was considered acceptable (i.e. politics ends at the waters edge) in the era of consensus. That said, as you note above, the border has been hurting Democrats politically while there hasn't been an easy way for Democrats to address it. If, perforce, the White House must accept a harsh border law to safeguard the global order, you can quite easily envisage a Dobbs situation where the politics starts running in the opposite direction. 
It is my hope that the WH can wrangle out a deal from the most irresponsible opposition in my lifetime in American politics. Ukraine aid is at best 50/50 right now. 

I would strongly suggest going back and reading the best informed people circa late April of the first year of the war. I think you will find that the White House did a pretty credible job from what what known/expected then. 

The Luttvak/Kissinger comparison is entirely apt. They are both courtiers who specialize(d) in telling elites what they want to hear under a veneer of respectability and a scrim of intellectual verbiage. 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/
Well, no more insane pro-Russia takes from this guy. I'd have a shot if I didn't have to drive to work in an hour.

Fingers crossed this report is accurate, the less of these things flying the better.

American immigration is very different than the rest of the world and people would be wise to acknowledge the differences.
Because we have the best jobs, and ironically the least racism towards immigrants, and a society that fetishizes working a lot, plus a rather maleable and heterogenous national culture, it’s not that hard to fit in here. Witness the people bussed up to New York from the border, who immediately started taking delivery jobs and whatever they could find. We don’t have a huge Muslim terrorist problem, because all these young guys can find work, and it’s completely cool to have Mosque, or an Afghan man-skirt, or whatever you want (the conservatives almost certainly prefer it to a fursuit or latex, at least in public).
Immigrants who come here generally want to work as much as possible and are often quite patriotic about their new country, illegal or otherwise. It’s not that easy to get here, so you have to be smart, risk-taking, hard-working, lucky or some combination thereof.
Europe is much easier to get to, much harder to integrate into, and has a much worse economic situation. Even if as a young MENA dude you are there to just make a better life for yourself, it’s gonna be harder.
EDIT: Another anecdote: A friend of a friend is CFO for a major regional bank in the South and wishes he could lend to illegal immigrants, as he says they always repay their debt and are the best workers.
 

Okay. This guy is a silly little dummy.

I recall reading that during the Iraq war Bradleys were sometimes more trouble than they were worth. Because the enemy saw them as 'trophy' targets and they became magnets for incoming fire. If you could use less conspicuous vehicles you would be able to perform the mission while attracting less attention.

Look back at each previous generation. Once people hit a 'certain age' the opinion gets expressed that everything's going to hell in a handbasket. The young think for one reason, the old for another. You can go back to Greek literature for examples. The hot-blooded youths  think the top-down system is corrupt, the oldster oligarchs think the nihilism rabble threaten stability at the base. Only the details change over time. Granted, sometimes things do indeed go to hell, but the pendulum appears to swings from one culprit to the other. Che Guevara had different motives from Francisco Franco, who had different motives from Pol Pot, who had different motives from Tojo who had different motives from Lenin. Regardless, the result was still things going to hell.

"More harm has been done by people panicked over societal decline than societal decline ever did."
-Randall Munroe (xkcd)

Look back at each previous generation. Once people hit a 'certain age' the opinion gets expressed that everything's going to hell in a handbasket. The young think for one reason, the old for another. You can go back to Greek literature for examples. The hot-blooded youths  think the top-down system is corrupt, the oldster oligarchs think the nihilism rabble threaten stability at the base. Only the details change over time. Granted, sometimes things do indeed go to hell, but the pendulum appears to swings from one culprit to the other. Che Guevara had different motives from Francisco Franco, who had different motives from Pol Pot, who had different motives from Tojo who had different motives from Lenin. Regardless, the result was still things going to hell.

Look back at each previous generation. Once people hit a 'certain age' the opinion gets expressed that everything's going to hell in a handbasket. The young think for one reason, the old for another. You can go back to Greek literature for examples. The hot-blooded youths  think the top-down system is corrupt, the oldster oligarchs think the nihilism rabble threaten stability at the base. Only the details change over time. Granted, sometimes things do indeed go to hell, but the pendulum appears to swings from one culprit to the other. Che Guevara had different motives from Francisco Franco, who had different motives from Pol Pot, who had different motives from Tojo who had different motives from Lenin. Regardless, the result was still things going to hell.

Look back at each previous generation. Once people hit a 'certain age' the opinion gets expressed that everything's going to hell in a handbasket. The young think for one reason, the old for another. You can go back to Greek literature for examples. The hot-blooded youths  think the top-down system is corrupt, the oldster oligarchs think the nihilism rabble threaten stability at the base. Only the details change over time. Granted, sometimes things do indeed go to hell, but the pendulum appears to swings from one culprit to the other. Che Guevara had different motives from Francisco Franco, who had different motives from Pol Pot, who had different motives from Tojo who had different motives from Lenin. Regardless, the result was still things going to hell.

Look back at each previous generation. Once people hit a 'certain age' the opinion gets expressed that everything's going to hell in a handbasket. The young think for one reason, the old for another. You can go back to Greek literature for examples. The hot-blooded youths  think the top-down system is corrupt, the oldster oligarchs think the nihilism rabble threaten stability at the base. Only the details change over time. Granted, sometimes things do indeed go to hell, but the pendulum appears to swings from one culprit to the other. Che Guevara had different motives from Francisco Franco, who had different motives from Pol Pot, who had different motives from Tojo who had different motives from Lenin. Regardless, the result was still things going to hell.

Look back at each previous generation. Once people hit a 'certain age' the opinion gets expressed that everything's going to hell in a handbasket. The young think for one reason, the old for another. You can go back to Greek literature for examples. The hot-blooded youths  think the top-down system is corrupt, the oldster oligarchs think the nihilism rabble threaten stability at the base. Only the details change over time. Granted, sometimes things do indeed go to hell, but the pendulum appears to swings from one culprit to the other. Che Guevara had different motives from Francisco Franco, who had different motives from Pol Pot, who had different motives from Tojo who had different motives from Lenin. Regardless, the result was still things going to hell.

I recall discussing lessons learned from the Iraq war and I commented that nobody's going to un-invent the roadside IED. The 'great powers' have been facing the problem of cheap-vs-expensive asymmetric warfare for quite awhile

I recall discussing lessons learned from the Iraq war and I commented that nobody's going to un-invent the roadside IED. The 'great powers' have been facing the problem of cheap-vs-expensive asymmetric warfare for quite awhile