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That low? Were there other nuclear powers on the brink of confrontation with us on that one?

I was thinking about this a few days ago, wondering whether we will see the dead bodies, and I’m guessing we won’t, because sensitivities. Remember Vietnam? Each night, the network news would show video of soldiers wounded in the field, or coffins of soldiers coming home. It was instrumental in shifting American sentiment against the war. The then-current presidential administration and its military complex did not like that. So, in the wars after that, starting with Lebanon and Grenada and on through Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and all the post-9/11 wars, the military embedded the media with the troops to get them on the same sympathetic side as the soldiers, and there was exactly zero footage of facts on the ground like dead soldiers blown up by IEDs made available for the media to air. This worked to prevent Americans from seeing as they did with Nam just how dirty and deadly war actually is. It didn’t necessarily keep all Americans invested in pursuing those wars, because other reasons, but grim footage of death on a nightly basis was not a factor in people’s opposition to, for instance, America’s Middle East wars. I think it would be beyond shocking for the media to foist close-up images of dead people at all, let alone children, on any basis, let alone nightly. There are probably websites out there that will feature that kind of imagery, but people would have to seek that out, and I don’t think anyone save for a few NGO professionals and perhaps some ghoulish people would do so. So unless there is a dramatic shift in the perspective of presenting raw war footage in the media, I think the closest we will get to anything like that is grainy or blurry or heavily edited images of unidentifiable adult people falling down from a distant camera angle, and maybe not even that.

Much like Trump, his red hats and his inner circle, Putin believed in the Kool-Aid he was drinking. He believed that Ukraine is an illegitimate state; that “Ukrainian” is a fake nationality; that in their hearts people living there identity as Russian; that they were duped by an faux-democratic globalist conspiracy into leaving Mother Russia; and that once they realize this they would welcome his soldiers with open arms; since they are going there only to eliminate the Uki-Nazi leadership and their sympathizers. Now he’s going to get bogged down by a super expensive occupation that is going to complete the bankruptcy of his country that began with the withdrawal of the world economic and business community. His people are going to starve, there will be protests and even riots in the street, and his soldiers will have to decide whether to draw blood from their fellow countrymen in defense of whatever the fuck Putin tells them the principles at hand are. As for Putin himself, he’ll be like Kim Jong Un for at least a while: a guy who owns everything and everyone in an entire country, with which and whom he can do as he pleases. He can steal from anyone, torture anyone, fuck anyone, kill anyone he wants, with complete impunity. For now, anyway. It’s very possible that the sheer ugliness of the story that will eventually be told about the Russia of this era will be as shocking as anything we learned about Nazi Germany.

You are not the only one, and I need to do better as well. Great post.

The increase under Biden in 2021 can't be well-defended, for sure, but Trump certainly liked his Russian oil too. Especially near the end there. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIM_NUS-NRS_1&f=M FWIW, Russia's never more than 8% of all oil imports in any given year.

No proof, but …

So called creation of jobs.

Cruz misspelled “Trump” and “Pence”.

Trump would have been strong with Putin.

I presented a poster on this in Pittsburgh a few years ago where I showed that deadening the ball by just 1% to 2% could result in double digit percent decrease in homers.

This is so far nestled in between Invasion of Poland and Cuban Missile Crisis. 9/11 has turned out to be pretty much what I was filleted for saying about it at the time: a heinous criminal act blown way out of proportion, up to the level of state action, for political, military, and profit purposes. I think COVID is/was bigger than 9/11.

The Allies may not technically be a party to the conflict, but we are practically a party to it, which counts just as much. I don’t think Putin would ask for Trump to be part of the Allies negotiating team because I don’t think he’s going to ask to sue for peace in the first place. Such a concession would be the ultimate weakness. He either wins, or he loses. No in-between. But: as revolting or nauseating the thought is, in the spirit of what if, if Putin did demand to talk to Trump and agreed to stop the shelling in order to do so, which could save tens of thousands of civilians lives, the Allies, including Ukraine, would have to seriously consider that. After all, we’d be talking tens of thousands of lives saved here. And if they did meet and, in a charade pre-arranged between them, Putin agreed to permanent cessation of hostilities as a result of those talks, Trump could be considered a hero as a result, albeit controversially. And to the degree that people in this very forum believe it’s a foregone conclusion Trump will be elected in 2024 anyway, something like a successful Putin-Trump peace summit would cement his landslide election here at home. Ick.

Stipulating that we both agree that this is unlikely, why do you think it is unlikely? Do you think it’s because Putin would never think of it? Or do you think it’s because Putin wouldn’t want Trump involved in the talks?

Yeah, I’m not predicting that. Just a random thought to flew into my head last night as I reviewed pictures from Helsinki 2018.

Remember, Bunker doesn’t like Trump, tho

This would ring a little better if MJT didn’t believe her worst enemies are other Americans.

You can cheer for the death penalty for the worst of the worst, and no one will blame you, and many will attaboy you for it. OTOH, a death penalty that can be used on one is a death penalty that can be used on any. Word to the wise.

Pence was willfully ignorant of Trump’s worst impulses and behaviors, hoping against hope he could be talked into the mainstream Republican fold. All the mainstream Republicans were equally willfully ignorant, with the same hopes. Pence was in the position of not being able to publicly abandon that hope at any point because of his unique position, which I think is why he stayed silent until well after the end.

I think the difference is that Russia’s disinformation machine thrives in conditions of peace, during which their target market is not attuned to it. Disinformation is at its most insidious when it works on a mind at rest. A mind heightened by crisis is far less likely to fall for the bullshit.

Suppose Putin announces that he will agree to peace talks immediately only if Trump is involved in the talks as a lead representative on the Allied side, or else Russia continues to shell Ukrainian civilians with promises to up the ante to missiles and nukes. That’s a condition that would sorely tempt the Allies to agree to the demand, just to stop the killing. Putin’s goal would be to strengthen Trump’s position here at home to assure his election in 2024, after which Trump could create the conditions necessary for Putin to get Russia back up to better than previous full strengthen. That would be the plan, anyway. God, what a revolting idea.

I agree, although in Pence’s defense, he will be expelled from party-backed public speaking engagements if he does drop the T-bomb during these. So this might be as much as he can say at all.

I believe you did answer your own question. Fear of the home run is why pitchers put 100% into every pitch from pitch one of the ballgame, because every single batter in 2022 can take them out of the ballpark. So instead of trying to throw heat past most hitters on the regular, they twist their shoulders and elbows into ungodly contortions trying to get swing and miss. No wonder pitchers are wiped out by the time the 19th batter of the game steps to the plate, and also why they seem to be getting hurt in historically record numbers. How can this very necessary pitching approach not take a toll? Deaden the ball and pitchers won’t have to do that, except to the heart of the order. They can just serve up their four-seamers (and two-seamers, if those exist anymore) to down-the-order hitters and say here you go, hit it and get yourself out. Allow for this, and pitchers can go deeper into games, deeper into seasons, and even deeper into their careers. I can’t believe no one at Baseball hasn’t figured this out. I gotta believe they know this, but they prefer the current state of affairs because of (a) the desirability of the video highlight homer for their state media’s nightly marketing vid … er, recap show; and (2) the attractiveness of will-he-or-won’t-he-homer, which I wouldn’t doubt is the #1 prop bet being made at the books. I also wonder whether Baseball also prefers the parade of AAAA pitchers on rosters, since that increases the chances for home runs on mistake pitches, and also because fewer of them will get far enough in their careers to force owners to pay them good and proper before they retire.

This is, in part, what made Mariano Riviera, and really any other modern closer who could throw one devastating pitch even for a little while, so effective. Riviera was famous for throwing one and only pitch, basically, but no one could hit it because no one could ever dig in and get comfortable against it. No one ever faced Riviera more than six times in a single season, not even David Ortiz, and never twice in the same game. No wonder no one could hit him. Contrast that to Joe DiMaggio, who faced Bob Feller as many as 34 times in a single season, sometimes four or more times in a single game, and you can understand how he could figure out how to slash .342/.415/.643 against even Rapid Robert.