Anyone watching the big game tonight?

[zappatton2]

Man, if Gary Busey was actually appointed tomorrow to run a major federal department, I'd like to be shocked, but the "shock receptors" in my brain have been worn to a nub.

 

[StevenC]

DHS Now Allows for Surveillance based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

If you or your loved ones are part of the LGBTQ community, there are steps you should take to protect yourself.

www.erininthemorning.com

The US Government can now surveil you for being straight or for being a man. Love me some liberty.

 

[tedtan]

DHS Now Allows for Surveillance based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

If you or your loved ones are part of the LGBTQ community, there are steps you should take to protect yourself.

www.erininthemorning.com

The US Government can now surveil you for being straight or for being a man. Love me some liberty.

The article states that protections for sexual orientation and gender identity were dropped, but protections for “race, ethnicity, sex, religion, country of birth, nationality, or disability” remain. So they could surveil someone for identifying as a straight man, but not for being a straight cis male; the cis male is still protected. This will be challenged in court, I’m sure, and the legal question/distinction is “identifying as”, and I think we know how the Trump appointed judges will rule on that.

 

[_MonSTeR_]

DHS Now Allows for Surveillance based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

If you or your loved ones are part of the LGBTQ community, there are steps you should take to protect yourself.

www.erininthemorning.com

The US Government can now surveil you for being straight or for being a man. Love me some liberty.

So they can now use my search history to try to get the scoop on all the swirled Ibanez JEMs that come up for sale.

It won’t do you any good, boys. Rich Harris still beats me to the deal every time!!!

 

[S4M4R1N]

Your mistake is that governing isn't business.

It's actually even more strict within public official domain.

I’ve been a part of many high dollar business negotiations, including one where my only reason for being there was to kill the deal in such a way as to return a perceived insult to the other side. I get that games are sometimes part of negotiations.

If the old posts are still around somewhere, you can go back to the 2015 era US Politics thread (then called something to the effect of Will Trump Actually Win the Election?) and read my posts where I stated that Trump is only good at negotiations where he has power over the other party, but has absolutely no skillset to negotiate with equals because his MO is to take advantage of those in need (his tenants, contractors that need to be paid, etc.). This was a case of Trump trying to take advantage of Ukraine, possibly, in part, because he personally dislikes Zelensky (see the lead up to Trump’s first impeachment).

But as pathetic as that is, Trump is missing the fact that Russia is significantly weaker than they let on. Their “3 day special military operation” is still ongoing after three years and they’ve had to beg help from Iran and North Korea in order to keep going, etc. But instead of putting the screws to an actual enemy of the US, Trump is cucking for Putin and trying to embarrass an ally on television/video clips for what, his ego?

My exact point was that the game went already too far behind the closed doors, so it was hard for parties to hold back even in front of cameras. Jeff Bezos and Joe the plummer are both CEO's, but equals in no other way. So Trump's MO is actually very applicable as Zelensky is on a non-stop fundraiser here, not the other way around. Zelensky knows full well who is he dealing with.

Kind of a perverse way of looking at it.

Russia are the bad guys and Ukraine are fighting a proxy war against them on behalf of the West to prevent Russian colonization from rolling directly into NATO territory. Protecting allies and beating back dictators is a venture the US typically have to give up their own blood in doing. It's a sick premise to start from the position that controlling Russian expansion is a "them" problem.

At some point in life, you realize that when somebody is talking about good vs evil, they most likely want to make money and you're the product. As you already alluded, Ukraine is an asset doing NATO's bidding. An asset that has served it's purpose rather well, but now is turning toxic. Good business practice is that you write off bad assets as soon as they fail to meet balance sheet criteria. What EU is trying to to is to prolong the inevitable and repackage Ukraine the same way Lehman Brothers were repackaging toxic MBS. You can't repackage MBS when new mortgages aren't coming up in required amount. You can't supply infinite ammunition to a country running out of capable men. This is math, you don't need to like Trump to understand this. US leadership is fighting against this development and essentially issued a margin call in the form of minerals deal. It's all about the money. Always.

 

[narad]

It's actually even more strict within public official domain.

My exact point was that the game went already too far behind the closed doors, so it was hard for parties to hold back even in front of cameras. Jeff Bezos and Joe the plummer are both CEO's, but equals in no other way. So Trump's MO is actually very applicable as Zelensky is on a non-stop fundraiser here, not the other way around. Zelensky knows full well who is he dealing with.

At some point in life, you realize that when somebody is talking about good vs evil, they most likely want to make money and you're the product. As you already alluded, Ukraine is an asset doing NATO's bidding. An asset that has served it's purpose rather well, but now is turning toxic. Good business practice is that you write off bad assets as soon as they fail to meet balance sheet criteria. What EU is trying to to is to prolong the inevitable and repackage the Ukraine the same way Lehman Brothers were repackaging toxic MBS. US leadership is fighting against this and essentially issued a margin call in the form of minerals deal. It's all about the money. Always.

Diplomacy != Corporate Deal. Why are you speaking like this?

 

[spawnofthesith]

 

[eaeolian]

I am now realising that due to the demise of P&CE we now have to discuss Canadian politics in here too

Grey Cup. Get it right, it's a different Big Game.

 

[BlackMastodon]

It's actually even more strict within public official domain.

My exact point was that the game went already too far behind the closed doors, so it was hard for parties to hold back even in front of cameras. Jeff Bezos and Joe the plummer are both CEO's, but equals in no other way. So Trump's MO is actually very applicable as Zelensky is on a non-stop fundraiser here, not the other way around. Zelensky knows full well who is he dealing with.

At some point in life, you realize that when somebody is talking about good vs evil, they most likely want to make money and you're the product. As you already alluded, Ukraine is an asset doing NATO's bidding. An asset that has served it's purpose rather well, but now is turning toxic. Good business practice is that you write off bad assets as soon as they fail to meet balance sheet criteria. What EU is trying to to is to prolong the inevitable and repackage Ukraine the same way Lehman Brothers were repackaging toxic MBS. You can't repackage MBS when new mortgages aren't coming up in required amount. You can't supply infinite ammunition to a country running out of capable men. This is math, you don't need to like Trump to understand this. US leadership is fighting against this development and essentially issued a margin call in the form of minerals deal. It's all about the money. Always.

Jesus Christ, dude, it's not a public stock or bond or something, it's human lives. How far removed are you to put a dollar amount on people defending their country in a war started by a super power? Yes, it costs money and resources to continue to support them, but you're really advocating for "boy, this whole war thing has taken a lot longer than we thought, you're on your own Ukraine, good luck. Russia, call me when it's over and we can lift those pesky tariffs and trade embargoes"?

 

[Randy]

At some point in life, you realize that when somebody is talking about good vs evil, they most likely want to make money and you're the product.

Hate to jump to Godwin's Law but uh, Hitler being the bad guy is up for debate or?

 

[Drew]

DHS Now Allows for Surveillance based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

If you or your loved ones are part of the LGBTQ community, there are steps you should take to protect yourself.

www.erininthemorning.com

The US Government can now surveil you for being straight or for being a man. Love me some liberty.

Man, they should have passed this six or seven years ago, before I met my wife. I was WAY more fun back then!

 

[eaeolian]

I semi disagree on how strategic it was. Yeah they wanted Zelensky to sign an agreement that was going to make way to cave to Putin but the actual event that happened was a toddler melt down because Vance asked Zelensky to thank Trump in the most condescending way possible and when he pushed back, Trump went full mama bear on him. It was full on manchild.

Vance really is a wiener, in the most insultingly possible sense of the word.

 

[eaeolian]

Seriously, does MAGA want their auto or AC mechanic to act like this? “I can fix it for an absurd price, and if my fix fails then the price goes up. Also I’ll break something else while working on the unit and charge you for that repair too.”

Apparently, yes. That's what they keep voting for.

 

[eaeolian]

To wear such informal gym attire into the very same room where dozens of interns clandestinely sucked cock is a disgrace to America.

Like that's a past-tense thing? I'm sure that's a regular tradition among the staff now.

 

[eaeolian]

More self-aware than rig-talk then I guess

Bro, there's rocks that are more self-aware than Rig-Talk.

 

[narad]

Bro, there's rocks that are more self-aware than Rig-Talk.

Oh yea, you know Rock-Talk? Pretty cool place if you don't visit their OT section.

 

[S4M4R1N]

Jesus Christ, dude, it's not a public stock or bond or something, it's human lives. How far removed are you to put a dollar amount on people defending their country in a war started by a super power?

Far removed is when you keep funding a country to fight a war they cannot win, sending people to die when your ass is safe overseas.

Hate to jump to Godwin's Law but uh, Hitler being the bad guy is up for debate or?

No, Godwin's Law has nothing to do with your statement that if not for Ukriane, Russia will colonize Europe. Occupation is extremely expensive, Pentagon spreadsheet for Afghanistan and Iraq won't lie. Colonizing 4 million square miles is a boogieman tale for folks that can't to basic math.

 

[Drew]

My exact point was that the game went already too far behind the closed doors, so it was hard for parties to hold back even in front of cameras. Jeff Bezos and Joe the plummer are both CEO's, but equals in no other way. So Trump's MO is actually very applicable as Zelensky is on a non-stop fundraiser here, not the other way around. Zelensky knows full well who is he dealing with.
At some point in life, you realize that when somebody is talking about good vs evil, they most likely want to make money and you're the product. As you already alluded, Ukraine is an asset doing NATO's bidding. An asset that has served it's purpose rather well, but now is turning toxic. Good business practice is that you write off bad assets as soon as they fail to meet balance sheet criteria. What EU is trying to to is to prolong the inevitable and repackage Ukraine the same way Lehman Brothers were repackaging toxic MBS. You can't repackage MBS when new mortgages aren't coming up in required amount. You can't supply infinite ammunition to a country running out of capable men. This is math, you don't need to like Trump to understand this. US leadership is fighting against this development and essentially issued a margin call in the form of minerals deal. It's all about the money. Always.

I think for a lot of this, there's some REALLY important context you're missing, but that argument that Ukraine is a NATO asset is... let's start there.

The problem with that viewpoint, and this is something Trump is missing too, is Ukraine never wanted war with Russia. NATO never tried to instigate war with Russia in Ukraine. Rather, one day Russia rolled in with a barrage of tanks, expecting to annex large swathes of the place, and met frankly what was pretty embarrassingly stiff resistance from the part of the Ukrainian people, severely denting the reputation of what was at the time I believe the 5th largest army in the world, only slightly behind the US themselves. NATO - a treaty organization founded for communist Russian containment, of which Ukraine was not then and not now a member, certainly had an interest in Ukraine beating back the Russians... but they'd rather have not had a war at all here. Ukraine was a straight-up liability for the west, not an asset.

And, as far as the context here... Remember that a deal had already been done; it didn't go as far as Zelensky wanted to ensure Ukrainian security, and it likely went a lot further towards providing US mineral rights than he'd wanted... but an agreement was in place. There was a press conference already scheduled that afternoon for immediately after the deal was due to be signed, and for some reason (and we'll come back to this) Trump decided he wanted to do a media event before (and, I assume, during) the signing.

Beyond that, remember that Trump had recently taken the responsibility of press pool selection away from the independent White House Correspondents' Association, and brought it back to the executive branch, meaning he was hand-picking who was in that room. As a consequence, Reuters and the AP did not have representatives in the room... but Russian state media did, and pro-Trump media outlets did. So, when 40 minutes into the meeting, JD Vance broke in and suggested that Zelensly should be turning to diplomacy rather than trying to drive Russia out of Ukrainian territory, and then suggested Zelensky wasn't suitably grateful because he'd never said thank you to the United States (which, needless to say, is false), well... it was a public appearance that didn't need to have been televised, in front of a pro-Trump and a Russian audience.

Add to this the fact Trump was impeached in his first term for threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine (before the Russian invasion) unless they announced they were opening an investigation into Hunter Biden (importantly, Trump made it clear he didn't actually care if the investigation happened, just that it was announced), too, something the media has been oddly quiet about.

This leads you to a couple inevitable takeaways. One, this was very likely premeditated, as an "out" for Trump. Why hold this public meeting at all, when there was already a press conference scheduled for immediately after a deal was signed? Two, not only did a friendly media audience mean there was no risk of domestic pushback, this was also intended as a message to Russia, as to where our sentiments lay. This morning news broke that Pete Hegseth instructed the DoD to cease all digital counterintelligence work in Russia, as well; that isn't a coincidence. Three, based on one and two, there was likely nothng Zelensky COULD have done that would have resulted in a deal or avoided this fight, save for announcing he was surrendering all of the disputed territory to Russia immediately. Four, the very premise of the deal Trump wanted - mineral rights to ensure Ukraine "paid back" the $180B in military support we'd provided them - was a drastic, and wholly transactional, change from US involvement in pretty much any military engagement involving an ally I can remember, and sends a STRONG message to other despots of the world that we won't interfere with their territorial expansion plans unless we stand to make money from doing so.

It's a fucking mess, in short, and looks a lot like the first several steps of a pivot from Europe to Russia on our part.

 

[tedtan]

It's actually even more strict within public official domain.

One would think, but that debacle was anything but.

My exact point was that the game went already too far behind the closed doors, so it was hard for parties to hold back even in front of cameras. Jeff Bezos and Joe the plummer are both CEO's, but equals in no other way. So Trump's MO is actually very applicable as Zelensky is on a non-stop fundraiser here, not the other way around. Zelensky knows full well who is he dealing with.

I disagree on facts.

That discussion SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED behind closed doors without the media present, but didn’t. Trump set it up to be in front of the media. And what was supposed to be a mineral rights signing backfired on Trump because Trump and Vance aren’t mature or experienced to take a win when it’s given to them. If world leaders not personally involved in the war are unable to control themselves in front on the cameras and reporters that they themselves arranged to be there, then they are unfit for office.

Further, as for Trump’s MO, that approach is never acceptable. That type of predator should locked up early and kept behind bars.

At some point in life, you realize that when somebody is talking about good vs evil, they most likely want to make money and you're the product. As you already alluded, Ukraine is an asset doing NATO's bidding. An asset that has served it's purpose rather well, but now is turning toxic. Good business practice is that you write off bad assets as soon as they fail to meet balance sheet criteria. What EU is trying to to is to prolong the inevitable and repackage Ukraine the same way Lehman Brothers were repackaging toxic MBS. You can't repackage MBS when new mortgages aren't coming up in required amount. You can't supply infinite ammunition to a country running out of capable men. This is math, you don't need to like Trump to understand this. US leadership is fighting against this development and essentially issued a margin call in the form of minerals deal. It's all about the money. Always.

Aggressive dictators grabbing land that isn’t theirs must be stopped, not because of assets, but because aggressors must be stopped.

Russia thought they could roll over Ukraine in three days. The only reason that we are still here three years later is that the west 1) has only supplied Ukraine with older, less effective weapons systems, and 2) have placed restrictions on the use of these weapons preventing Ukraine from using them in Russia for most of the past three years.

That’s not how you set your proxy up to be effective. You give them the means to win quickly and decisively rather than wringing your hands like an old man scared of Russia’s impotent nuclear war threats.

 

[tedtan]

It's not a matter of ego. Trump is able to pact with evil if he can benefit from it.

I was speaking specifically about the latest meeting between Trump and Zelensky. That was either Trump stroking his ego or performing for Putin. Pathetic either way.

But as for Trump’s larger motives, I agree that he’s either getting something out of it or is perhaps somehow indebted to Putin. Even a moron that likes chaos can’t think that what he’s doing here is a good negotiating strategy.