iNow

There’s also an agreement for Russian and Belarusian forces to meet negotiators from Ukraine along the border. May be an attempt to sow confusion. US is delivering an additional $350M in military aid including ammunition and surface to air missiles, bringing total military aid provided to Ukraine over past year to over $1B Germany has also reversed their longtime policy not to share military equipment with countries in active war zones and is shipping heavy equipment to support Ukraine defense now.

Yes, it’s both. False dichotomy. Then you’d be wrong.

Planet of the Apes? War of the Worlds? Man of the Hour? I’ll stop, but will not be tamed.

Maybe we’re just more open to vocalizing our frustrations here in the US than you lot who struggle even to tell one another you love them. Maybe this is a difference of cultural expression more than it’s a difference of judicial objectivity and jurisprudential purity. I’d agree we may have a greater degree of bias in our courts now, but cannot agree that your judges have none at all (at the risk of exaggerating stances and oversimplifying, if that makes sense, just making a point).

Exactly, the source of which being the very smartphones TheVat mentioned. Confused why this is confusing.

Good chat. Thanks for the exchange. But not to civilians and onlookers around the whole world, which I suspect is closer to thevats point

This may be an interesting idea to explore in another thread, but judgment is an act of interpretation. Our interpretations vary based on our own background and upbringing and even our genetics. You really do appear to think judges are 100% objective robots driven by one’s and zeroes absent any bias, but that’s not the reality anywhere around the planet, even in your own system in your own country, no matter how highly you think of them.

Ballsy move. Go Turkey. You seem unfamiliar with signals and intelligence??? The intelligence community was spot on all along with their assessments on this and that allowed leaders of NATO countries to speak so clearly about what was about to happen. Every time they said Putin would do XYZ, he then went and did XYZ. That doesn’t happen without high quality intel. Your unfounded opinions about what the next 50 years will bring may make for fun fantasy novels, but aren’t a relevant basis for discussion here. If you’re suggesting the west should’ve agreed that Ukraine would never join nato and agreed to change their military posture across Europe and this would’ve appeased Putin, it leaves open the question of what Putin would’ve demanded next time. Don’t negotiate with terrorists and whatnot.

59 million years ago, “humans” looked like a shrew.

They’re picked for many reasons. Are you suggesting no other criteria are used other than their political leanings? Can you provide a few examples of where judges get appointed by politicians but where political leaning played zero role in their selection? What about judges who get elected directly by the people? Are you saying there are zero politics involved in elections? Were they maybe chosen based on a lottery or random number generator? I understand your point, but struggle aligning it with reality. Right, but aren’t we discussing the United States here? We can usually predict how the justices will likely rule on specific cases, but there are almost always undecided justices in the middle where their opinion is uncertain and it’s a leap IMO to call the cases coming before them “predetermined.”

Which is why I asked you to clarify it. Lol. Can we not agree it’s based on both? This is what all judges do. They review, interpret, amd make judgements. It’s right there in the name confirming that their opinion is always involved in what they do. They “judge.” Which is why there are more than one of them on the bench. The check and balance is built right into the structure of the court itself. Their individual power is restrained and personal motivations suppressed by the fact that other judges with different backgrounds and different motivations and different incentives must decide cases alongside them and the outcome of those cases is based on the majority consensus. Those with dissenting opinions also write those into the ruling and these dissents are often used to decide or inform future cases.

I agree with many / most of these points, but struggle with the first. When viewed in context of the wellbeing of his people, then sure. Failed leader seems to fit. When viewed in context of his level of control and authority and power, he’s anything but failed. He went from a kid born to a factory worker and a crewman on a sub whose previous siblings died from diphtheria in a children's home to the richest man on the planet capable of seizing other countries and preventing the US from stopping him. It all depends on how one defines failure and success. Agreed. Same here. Stay safe over there, sir.

Which is neither making nor writing laws. It’s interpreting them, which you seem to be already aware of since you said the same thing yourself 7 hours ago.

It means someone wrote a law that defines what copyright means. Without that law (or “statute”) then copyright wouldn’t exist. The way copyright gets applied and enforced is dictated by that statute and how courts interpret it.

Sadly these days, neither do the house or senate. /rimshot j/k… it’s mostly the senate that’s broken. House is okay, but screwed up due to gerrymandered districts and corrupted rejection of absentee ballots You’ll need to expand your point a bit here, mate. I’m fairly well tuned into and knowledgeable about how these things work in the US system, but don’t follow your intended meaning.

I’ll try to watch it later. Can you provide an executive summary? And to be clear, I’m no fan of these tactics nor a huge advocate for the madman explanation. Just sharing what I see as the most plausible explanations given currently available intel

Indeed, but making laws <> overturning laws

The Supreme Court in the US is the same. They don’t make laws either.

Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

I accept your point that the country is in decline given how much of the economy is contingent on oil and how much corruption there is (it's basically a mob family writ large into a country where all kickbacks go up to the leader), but as it remains one of the worlds major superpowers with an impressive military, nuclear stockpile, and more than capable cyber army, and as he is single handedly in charge of all of it with zero checks on his power like the Man in the High Castle, I find it a bit hyperbolic to refer to him as "an obsolete remnant of an obsolete system." It's not like Putin is Mugabe in Zimbabwe or something. I tend to agree, but as he's implicitly threatening nuclear strike, and took control of Chernobyl as one of the first things done during the invasion within 24 hours presumably so he could threaten to blow off the concrete bubble that's been built to contain the radioactivity, it's not unreasonable to mention how this may be part of what's preventing Biden and team from putting sanctions DIRECTLY on Putin himself just yet. They're keeping their powder dry where they can, but they're also likely trying not to back him into the type of corner that would result in such "mad" behavior with nukes. Putin isn't a weakling like Trump, but Trump's also not the subject of this thread.

The Pentagon has ordered 7,000 more US troops into Europe, effectively doubling what was sent a few weeks ago.

I don’t disagree with this. I’ve experienced mild versions of my myself repeatedly with extreme hypoglycemic events.

I had basically this exact same thought when reading it. Scanning past experiences to find a way of categorizing this new one.

Again from Axios: The European Union, Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are joining the U.S. with similar actions as a "force multiplier," according to the White House. * Russia's largest financial institution will be cut off from the U.S. financial system, reports Axios' Zachary Basu and Oriana Gonzalez. * "Full-blocking" sanctions will be imposed on four additional Russian banks. * New debt restrictions will be imposed on 13 Russian state-owned enterprises and entities that together hold nearly $1.4 trillion in assets. * The U.S. will impose sweeping export controls on technologies critical to the Russian defense sector and broader economy. * Seven Russian elites and their family members who hold some of the highest positions of power in the country will also be sanctioned.