Additionally, with the firepower at just the US’ disposal, we could level almost every major pop center in Russia. Waves of Tomahawks, ICBMs and bombers could do it without the US putting boots on the ground. We nearly did this with Baghdad back in 02.

Yeah, it seems more the IDF is just shooting literally anything human-shaped. Aid workers, friendlies, journalists, civilians, in addition to the odd actual “guy actually shooting at us”.

Nah, Trump is incredibly useful as a mouthpiece even if he loses, he’s got MILLIONS of people who hang on his every word, globally now. They’ll do him like they did Assange and simply trot him out whenever they need to justify something, have him rant and rave about “the decadent liberal west”, and when he’s no longer useful, they’ll find a nice pool for him to drown in or something.

This is also just an attempt to shore up demographics after losing THOUSANDS of men against Ukraine, and a good chunk of Russian nationals simply fleeing the country to avoid conscription. So you don’t get a nice apartment in Moscow or St Petersburg, you get a little hovel out in Siberia and all the farmland you could want.

We actually do have a pretty good indicator that she’s biologically female - the fact that her home country, where she still lives, would’ve jailed her if they figured out she was a trans woman before they sent her to the Olympics. Algeria doesn’t allow gender transitioning in any way, and they can and do imprison people who live as a gender other than the one they were born as.

Also, the body that DQed her in 2023 apparently ONLY found out “she was trans” (which she isn’t) after she had fought 9 other matches under the same federation, with testing before each one - her defeating a Russian boxer and immediately being DQed after that match, while fighting under the auspices of a Russian boxing federation, is totally coincidence, I’m sure.

The independent Russian Athletes thing they did for Russia is a compromise, because the IOC is all corrupt as hell and can’t stand losing ANY viewers. They knew that saying “yeah but we don’t care about the thing with Ukraine” wouldn’t fly, so they did that instead (despite a lot of the athletes still doping and not maintaining neutrality on the war like they’re supposed to). I’m honestly mad several countries are allowed to compete under their own flags, including Israel and Iran (ironically, there’s a TON of Iranian athletes competing AGAINST IRAN on the Refugee team this year).

Because Russia is mad they’re TECHNICALLY not allowed to compete for a variety of reasons.

Remember as well that modern small arms rounds are built to inflict serious injury if they don’t kill you outright - it takes more personnel to evac and care for a wounded soldier (unless you’re doing what Russia is ALLEGEDLY doing and just killing soldiers too injured to fight).

You forgot that this government has spent years telling their people that literally everyone in Palestine is supportive, materially or otherwise, of Hamas.

Moreover, surrendering whatever Russia sticks a flag in is appeasement nonsense. We’ve already seen this strategy before WWII: *oh, Germany will be OK if we just cede Czechoslovakia. Oh, Germany won’t attack if we cede Alsace-Lorraine…" An aggressive power like Russia, who already tried to annex large portions of another sovereign nation in 2008 (they invaded Georgia and got their shit kicked in because they tried the whole “three day thunder run” strategy), almost certainly will not stop if you just “give them what they want”. Eventually, they’ll want more, and more, and more, and you wind up surrendering slice after slice after slice of your country.

Israel has plenty of their own homegrown defense industry, I do not foresee them running out of armaments any time soon, despite what your politicians may say.

The issue is that none of those have the energy density of nuclear power. A single mid-sized nuclear plant can power a small city, where that same city would need at least a half-dozen solar farms around the area (assuming there’s enough cleared land to support it - rooftop solar can offset, but it generally will not replace mains power), or tons of wind turbines (again, subject to area - not every place is a good candidate). Geothermal and hydroelectric are subject to that same issue - you can’t place them anywhere, there are very specific requirements to get one up and running.

I agree we should work towards 100% green energy, but nuclear is an effective option dollar-for-dollar and acre-for-acre until we figure out a good way to increase energy density of wind or solar to a point where we don’t need enormous tracts of land dedicated to them in order to support places where people live.

Not just the DEA, we’ve built a whole economy around drug offenses staying illegal. Drug testing companies, technology firms that develop law enforcement gear, law enforcement seminars, to say nothing of the thousands of companies that profit off of prison labor for what is effectively free, and the fact that a lot of the nonviolent offenders wind up turning violent because nobody will hire or rent to someone with a drug conviction.

Not just that, but he also publicly bragged about how lax Romania’s laws and how they don’t care about rape during an administration that is attempting, at least on the surface, to change public perception of themselves worldwide from the corrupt governments of the 90s and 2000s.

There’s also the fact that Russia never really seemed to account for most of its monetary and material taps getting turned off. When you’re (ALLEGEDLY) throwing conscripts out there without even a single full magazine of ammo, you’re burning through old post-WWII ammo stocks, and constantly having to beg old SSR states “hey can we buy/borrow some of your tanks and APCs please,” it doesn’t look great.

Also, they think they might need a decade to defeat a power that has a fifth of its military size, and which has, so far, roundly managed to make a laughingstock out of much of the Russian military.

And the Chinese ones almost always work exclusively on economic Swords of Damocles.

Don’t forget that Trump has pretty much called for a genocide right here at home in the US, against trans people, against immigrants, and against pretty much anyone who doesn’t share his views. This doesn’t even count the stuff that his donors and PACs already have lined up for him to sign as soon as he sits his ass in the chair, or the fact that several US states have attempted to decriminalize murdering certain groups of people.

“Don’t use government fiat, instead use ELECTRONIC fiat that’s easier to steal and impossible to reverse if stolen.”