US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

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So what exactly is the play here for Putin?

1) Will he invade (or "occupy" as I'm sure they'll declare) the contested parts of the Ukraine assuming they first secede from the Ukraine sort of like what happened in Georgia with South Ossetia or
2) Is Putin hoping the Ukraine will concede to not join NATO so long as he promises to not support/recognize any kind of secession within the Ukraine?

Edit
3) I guess option 3) is Putin will pretty much do what the NVA did with the Vietcong in South Vietnam i.e. have Russian soldiers pretend to be Ukrainians and/or "volunteers" to help the separatists. And when they (or separatists) get to any trouble, they can just flee back to Mother Russia.
Both 1 and 3 have been his game plan ever since the start, actually. The minute those separatists did their thing Russian passports started getting handed out left and right, and there's been a surprisingly large number of Russian "volunteers" showing up in those places to go shoot at Ukrainians, and they somehow have a surprising amount of Russian-made gear on hand. You know, like top-end S-400 SAM systems like the one that shot down the airliner. Russian conscripts have been dying in the name of those separatists ever since things kicked off, and Russians are becoming increasingly unhappy with it. Unfortunately, Putin can't back down after going in hard at the start, since the Russian bear losing to Ukraine would be the world's biggest embarrassment, and heavily delegitimize his own unquestioned rule as a result.

The only thing Putin can really do is negotiate. He can either go tough on the West using NG as leverage to get them on board with forcing concessions from Ukraine, or negotiate with Zelensky to let both nations save face. I've not been paying too much attention to matters, but from what I can tell trying to leverage Germany is backfiring since its just pissing off the rest of NATO, so he's largely swapped to the second to try and extricate himself from an increasingly unpleasant situation. After all, the Russians cannot afford any major losses, either in men or materiel, since they're broke and they've got enough bodies piling up at home from old age and tobacco and alcohol abuse.
 

Democrats hit 30-year high for House retirements​

(article)
The number of House Democrats not seeking reelection this year has hit a 30-year high — a bleak benchmark reflecting frustrations with the gridlock on Capitol Hill, the toxicity of relations between the parties and the challenges facing Democrats as they fight to keep their slim majority in the lower chamber.

Rep. Kathleen Rice’s (D-N.Y.) announcement this week that she won’t run again made her the 30th House Democrat to call it quits. That’s the most for the party since 1992, when 41 House Democrats decided to retire even as voters were sending their presidential nominee, Bill Clinton, to the White House.

It marks just the third time since 1978 that either party has seen at least 30 retirements in a single cycle, according to figures tallied by the non-partisan Brookings Institution. The last instance was just four years ago, in the 2018 midterms, when 34 House Republicans made for the exits. It was a grim sign of things to come: The GOP went on to lose 41 seats — and the House majority — in a Democratic wave widely viewed as a referendum on then-President Trump.

This year, it’s President Biden’s Democrats who face the difficult terrain. Between Biden’s sagging approval ratings, a stalled policy agenda in Congress, nationwide redistricting and the historical trend that the incumbent president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections, the odds of winning the House are increasingly in the Republicans’ favor.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political handicapper at the University of Virginia, cited “a collision of important circumstances” creating fierce headwinds for Democrats, not least the redistricting process that, like a game of musical chairs, has left some lawmakers without their old districts — and pushed them into retirement.

“There are a lot of signs that this is not going to be a good year for Democrats,” Kondik said.

Adding to the Democrats’ woes, the number of retirement announcements will likely continue to grow in the coming weeks as lawmakers get closer to their states’ candidate filing deadlines, many of which are in the spring.

Kondik noted that several states have still not finalized their new district lines, and many primaries are later this year than they’ve historically been, with only one state (Texas) scheduling its primary contests before May. The combination, he said, is that there are “probably” more retirements to come.

In contrast to Democrats, just 13 incumbent House Republicans aren’t seeking reelection, while two others have resigned in recent months to take jobs in the private sector. Most of those seats are safely Republican. And The Cook Political Report, another election analyzer, has identified 39 Democratic seats as vulnerable heading into the midterms, versus 19 for the GOP.

“The 2022 elections are coming up quick, and Democrats need to decide now whether they want to retire or stick around and get fired,” said Calvin Moore, a spokesman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House GOP leadership.

Despite the challenges, Democratic leaders are putting on their best face, at least publicly, arguing that their legislative track record under Biden — including a massive COVID-19 relief package and another $1 trillion for infrastructure projects — will bring voters to their side in November.

“These are real results for the American people and a record that we'll be proud to play against the other side's absence of a plan,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (N.Y.), head of the Democrats’ campaign arm, told reporters last week.

Maloney also welcomed the redistricting results, saying that, nationwide, the new lines do not favor Republicans to the extent that many Democrats had feared heading into the process. In New York, for instance, state legislators have created new maps that put Democrats in a good position to flip three House seats currently held by Republicans — a shift that would offset similar gerrymandering efforts orchestrated by GOP-led state legislators around the country.

“The fact is that we are going to have a map ... we believe is fair,” Maloney said.

Still, recent polls indicate that an overwhelming percentage of Americans are unsatisfied with the direction the country is headed. The sour mood — fueled by soaring inflation rates and national fatigue over the COVID-19 pandemic — has tanked Biden’s approval rating, which stands at just 41 percent. Among modern presidents, only Trump was more unpopular a year into his tenure.

Republicans have pounced, pointing to the higher number of Democrats retiring as a sign that they’re poised to flip at least the minimum of five seats necessary to win back control of the House after just four years in the minority.

“Thirty House Democrats have called it quits because they know their majority is doomed,” said Mike Berg, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Eight of the 30 House Democrats who aren’t seeking reelection are running for other offices, including for Senate, governor, state attorney general and, in the case of Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Los Angeles mayor.

Several have specifically cited once-a-decade redistricting that made their districts much less favorable for a Democrat to win. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), for example, acknowledged that “there's no way, at least for me in this election cycle” after his state's legislature split his home city of Nashville into three districts.

Others have expressed a desire to move on from Congress or spend more time with loved ones back home instead of making the weekly trek to the Capitol, which has become a scorched-earth environment, with Republicans and Democrats constantly at each other’s throats over the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the COVID-19 pandemic.

A number of the Democrats calling it quits are hardly at a traditional retirement age, in contrast to some of their colleagues whose congressional careers have lasted decades.

“I have always believed that holding political office is neither destiny nor a right. As elected officials, we must give all we have and then know when it is time to allow others to serve,” Rice, 57, said in her announcement this week.

The number of lawmaker retirements on each side of the aisle has frequently been correlated with the party that wins the House majority.

In 1994, the first midterm of Clinton’s presidency when Republicans seized the chamber after decades in the minority, Democrats saw 28 retirements versus 20 for the GOP, according to the Brookings figures.

In 2006, when Democrats reclaimed the chamber, 17 Republicans retired compared to nine Democrats.

There isn't always a huge gap in the number of retirements to predict a wave election. In 2010, 17 Democrats retired in a year when they lost a whopping 63 seats — and House control. A comparable 15 Republicans retired that same cycle.

But some past retirement trends have only been correlated with a loss of seats without being a predictor of who wins control of the chamber. In 1992, for example, nearly twice as many House Democrats retired as Republicans. And while Democrats lost seats, they still held on to their majority with Clinton at the top of the ballot.

But that, the experts say, was the exception, not the rule. And any party would prefer to minimize the number of retirements, even in the best of years.

“Incumbency is not as electorally valuable as it used to be, but a party still would rather have an incumbent running, generally speaking, than not,” Kondik said. “Open seats are still easier for the opposition party to flip than incumbent-held seats.”
 
Because the resolution was Russia proposed, and was a shitty attempt to justify their occupation of Crimea by calling Ukrainians a bunch of Nazis. Russia has quite a lot of neo-fascist movements themselves so maybe they should clean their own house first.
The
point
is
allegiance.
Please
learn
to
read.
 
Virginia is fucked long term unless the GOP can make serious strides over there.
They are trying, god knows the VA Local GOP Is trying. Between the massive republican voter turnout in the last election and the constant work to break off at least one Senate Dem per issue each branch is trying as hard as they can to fix every issue inch by inch.

Considering the same area that had the tranny school rape cover up is now getting 2k Afgans a month dump until September (right next to a middle and High School) I except another rape case & cover up here pretty soon.
 

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Seriously when the fucking GOP in Virginia has bigger balls than the GOP in an actual red state.

Seriously someone should have told the jew. That CRT literally tells white kids that their evil automatically unlike learning the Holocaust
The Virginia GOP was the same kind of ineffectual good ol boys for the longest time like what you see with Kemp in Georgia now which is how Virginia became first a swing state and then a blue state. Well, that and the sea change of demographics over the last two decades, it must be wild seeing Loudoun County go from rural mayo country to a suburb of Washington DC with all the assorted poz that comes with that in less than a generation. The VA GOP can either fight like hell like DeSantis in Florida, which it seems like they are, or hunker down in an ever shrinking patch of Red Virginia and slide closer to oblivion every election cycle like the CA GOP.
 
Mildly curious what the family-related issue was. Check to President Zelensky took a little while to clear?
View attachment 3000441
  • Hunter did something stupid... again
  • "Family-related issue" is just cover up talk for "Biden almost died on us, but he's actually doing O.K."
  • The whole thing was bullshit and he was never going to go to Delaware in the first place.
Those are my picks.
 
Well get ready for higher gas prices with the way this administration is running things.

"I hope you get a chance to ask him."

Translation: "I can't come up with an administration ass-kissing answer to that."

As for the actual reason Putin didn't escalate during Trump's administration? The same reason Kim-Jong Oink didn't: Trump has the kind of machismo big-dick energy that men like Putin and Kim-Jong Oink respected. When Kim-Jong did his usual nuclear saber-rattling, Trump bit back with this:
"Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime."
That's the kind of brass-balled comment that earns you a clap on the back and a chorus of OOOOOOOOOOHs from your mates.

Whereas Creepy Joe is so weak, his comments are like slapping them in the face with a fucking napkin from a little kid's birthday party.
“President Biden is prepared to engage President Putin at any time, in any format, if that can help prevent a war,” he said.
"P-p-p-pwease come and talk to me, Putin-kun! Be a good boy, uwu!"

Fucking pathetic.
 
"I hope you get a chance to ask him."

Translation: "I can't come up with an administration ass-kissing answer to that."

As for the actual reason Putin didn't escalate during Trump's administration? The same reason Kim-Jong Oink didn't: Trump has the kind of machismo big-dick energy that men like Putin and Kim-Jong Oink respected. When Kim-Jong did his usual nuclear saber-rattling, Trump bit back with this:

That's the kind of brass-balled comment that earns you a clap on the back and a chorus of OOOOOOOOOOHs from your mates.

Whereas Creepy Joe is so weak, his comments are like slapping them in the face with a fucking napkin from a little kid's birthday party.

"P-p-p-pwease come and talk to me, Putin-kun! Be a good boy, uwu!"

Fucking pathetic.
Hell, it's the kind of brass-balls comment that gets you respect from your opponents.

But yeah. Joe doesn't project strength. Or moxie. Or guile. Or anything, except the scent of pants shitting.
 
Hell, it's the kind of brass-balls comment that gets you respect from your opponents.

But yeah. Joe doesn't project strength. Or moxie. Or guile. Or anything, except the scent of pants shitting.
I don't think he even projects that much. He's probably got the best diapers in existence, and most importantly... his butt's been wiped.
 
We tried to take Canada in 1812 and failed. We stopped after that point because British Empire was clearly not worth tangling with again. We continued to take territory to the West, and (IMO correctly) regarded the empires we bordered, particularly the Spanish Empire, as security threats.

The point is, claiming that Americans are totally different than Russia when it comes conquering and annexing vast tracts of land on our border is absurd. We pushed all the way to the ocean and roughly tripled our land mass. Indian removal was a critical part of that, and after the War With Mexico, the Mexican inhabitants of the new territories had to submit to American rule (which, by the way, is why any claim that modern Mexicans are "native" to the American Southwest is moronic--the Mexicans who lived there at the time became American citizens, and their progeny are Americans).
Didn't Toqueville spell this out back in the 1820s that America and Russia were basically like weird alt history clones?
 
Rent is out of control in many places, can't get places to live.

But lets import goat fucking bronze age savages to make sure they vote Democrat.
"And give them free housing," don't forget that part. It's not good enough that housing is in a bubble death spiral due to lefty NGOs like Blackrock bailing bad mortgages out on the government dime and Californians watching House Flippers and thinking they can totally own the red staters by buying property and reselling it to rubes, the housing that IS available is going to various variety of nigger, sandniggers, and wetbacks so they can live off our dime.
 
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