re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Medicare and Social Security are driving America into financial ruin. Aid to Ukraine isn't a penny on the dollar of our problems.

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Social Security is not driving America to financial ruin, not at this point, anyway... why do you believe that?

The fund - independently funded by the payroll tax - is always "headed towards insolvency" in projections because the American population is older and not producing as many babies who go on to be workers paying into the system... but it never reaches that point, because young people from everywhere will doa anything they can to come here, get jobs, and pay into the system. America's actual demographic profile is always healthy because of immigration.

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Medicare and Social Security are driving America into financial ruin. Aid to Ukraine isn't a penny on the dollar of our problems.

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Ever heard of a hypothetical?

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What is interesting is, in a thread where intense vitriol focuses on presumptions that Russia is attempting to rebuild it's old empire, that any of the same folks would query the irony of regimes being supported for creating and defending similar empires.

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I do think that dynamic is interesting.

Putin will occasionally make comments glorifying aspects of the USSR or other iterations of Russian imperialism. But some of us won't ask ourselves if maybe he is just tapping into the same thing the "Make America Great Again" message taps into... nostalgia for a time when the country was great/powerful. We don't really think anything of it when Trump says it.

There are products all over Russia that use USSR iconography. Just look at the logo for CSKA Moscow, for instance

Where is this one million deaths coming from?

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allowing Russia to keep military bases seems like the absolute dumbest call I can imagine...

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Look at it from the point of view of HTS. Russia helped Assad because it was beneficial to them, not necessarily because they were just massive fans of the guy. For them, it was a business transaction. And even when they didn't have to, they took him in when he was likely about to be drug through the streets and who knows what else would have happened to him (and deservedly so).

The west is almost assuredly making all kinds of promises to HTS and welcoming them with open arms. They have seen how that story ends though. And in a little over a month the US is about to have a president whose foreign policy is likely to be very different from what it is today.

For an Islamic state, Russia is going to be a far more reliable partner. The US and our allies will almost always take the side of an issue that benefits Israel, and there will likely be times in the future where that will not benefit Syria.

Russia also will likely offer to help them consolidate power through direct force at some point, and that is something I can't really see the US doing.

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Not even close in financial burden to be considered at all. But the likes of Tucker, Rogan, etc... are nothing but Chicken Littles about cost.

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You just don't fricking get it dude

I was asking that to see if he really meant that the things he listed were his only no-goes. He clarified that they weren't. It isnt any deeper than that.

No one is suggesting this war will actually make us go broke. Tucker isn't hiding in the backseat of your car waiting to whisper propaganda in your ear.

A Russian scientist known for developing cruise missiles has been found shot dead in a snowy wooded area near Moscow.

Ukraine’s intelligence service claimed that it had assassinated Mikhail Shatsky, the deputy director of a Moscow-based ballistics engineering unit.

“Anyone who is involved in the development of the Russian military-industrial complex and support of Russian aggression in Ukraine one way or another is a legitimate target,” a Ukrainian defence source told the Kyiv Independent.

A blurb on Yahoo news.

Russia's primary strategic interest in the Middle East is going to be to support their Iranian allies -- and Russia and Iran are now closer than ever. There is no universe where HTS and Iran end up as buddies, and there's a and there's a good chance that Iran will try to undermine the new Syrian government, because Iran will want to reestablish its connection with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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College students in geospatial programs have access to imagery so good that you can see a pencil sitting on the dashboard of a car

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Keyhole satellites can do that. The drawback is that it's like looking at a room through a microscope. It provides great detail but a very narrow view.

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Zelensky has a 41% overall approval rating... that's the new reality for National leaders in this day and age.

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It’s definitely much higher than that. You’re just peddling Russia propaganda for Putin.