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I understand that. What I don't remember seeing is anyone here expressing contempt for someone because they are or once were military, irrespective of what color hat they wear.

Most people here despise soldiers? I haven't heard anything along those lines here.

I didn't come up with the 90% red hat number. That was someone else. I was agreeing on the assumption of an exaggeration for effect. I wouldn't bet money that the actual number is nine-zero. I was talking about economics in any event, that most ground force militaries derive their members from those communities of economically modest means. The same kind of guys who are on the ground for Russia right now. It turns out those guys may have even less to come home to after all this.

Yes, I do know that.

I don't think this characterization is at all accurate. The union is trying to win numerous gains for the youngest and least paid of their membership: they've asked for a substantial raise in minimum salary to levels commensurate with the three other major sports; they tried to get two-year players paid by having arbitration encompass all of them instead of 22% of them; they've been trying to get a substantial pre-arb bonus pool in place so young players working on minimum can earn extra dough through performance incentive, whereas before they had nothing like that; they tried to move free agency eligibility from six years to five. I also didn't see any asks that tried to get the "1%" class paid even more at all, let alone at the expense of the 99% of the membership. It's the current system that has created the situation resulting in the "1%" class, while players at the bottom of that ladder get relatively very little.

Not for nothing, Trump's sons' nicknames in school were "Stank" and "Choad". Apple-tree proverb applies here.

Soldiers tend to come from the same social class that gets rolled over the hardest when things go upside down as much as Putin has caused Russia to in just the last week. I don't know whether that means mass defections among the rank and file from the Russian armed forces in protest, but that's got to be in play at least somewhat now. We were worried about Russian Army saboteurs stealing Ukrainian civilian clothes and blending in so they could commit murderous mayhem, but it's starting to feel more likely that Russian Army defectors may steal Ukrainian civilian clothes and blend in so they can flee to Poland.

Again, you are not answering the question. You're merely whining about Biden and fluffing Putin. I'm a give you one more chance: what specific actions do you think any American President, no matter who it is, could have taken to effectively prevent Putin from invading Ukraine and avoiding war?

Please answer the question. What could have been to effectively stop Putin and avoid war entirely?

I find it interesting that all of the former Soviet republics either voted no, abstained, or are non-voting members. Looks like none of those guys want to poke the Bear, either.

Here’s the $64 question: what could we have done to effectively stop it, put Putin in his place, and entirely avoid war?

The masking in the car could be because they are picking up an immunocompromised person to take them someplace, maybe to a medical appointment, and they want to keep the air in the car clean before the person gets in.

Well, there’s a confirming post if ever I saw one.

Two days after the mask mandate was cast aside here in the city, I’m at the grocery store, and I would say between one third and one half of the shoppers I see are still masked. Totally cool—their choice. But it looks like 😷 is going to die a little harder here.

Also, another big difference is that Biden staffed his office with technocrats who typically have decades of experience in government, while tfg installed incompetent outsider kleptocrats whose sole purpose was to plunder the government they are on record as despising.

This question, after our suffering through four years of the most incompetent, dangerous, megalomaniac president in history. As long as Harris would have Biden’s people still around her, I wouldn’t worry much about it.

So, just for kicks, after the speech last night, I went to Overthrow America Network to see what they had to say about it. Besides three studio pundits, they had two staff on site, out in the hall outside chambers, and one of them is that Kremlin Kutie Trump's people liked to call on during WH press conferences last go round. First critique that came out of Kremlin Kutie's mouths, I swear, was that Joe Biden couldn't tell the Ukrainians from the Iranians. That right there signals that it is a very unserious, quite incompetent organization we're dealing with here. Then, not a minute later, halfway through a sentence, KK totally spaces out, and she and her partner sit in awkward silence for at least five, maybe ten seconds before her partner fumbles through a completion of what he thinks might be the intellectually bankrupt idea she was trying to put across before she started buffering. At this point I thought, holy shit, millions of people with votes in America are having all their thinking handed to them by these morons. God help us all.

Given how likely it is that the fallout would waft across NATO Europe, I'm thinking yeah, that might be enough.

Looks like someone's uncle found the keys to the vodka cabinet and the toolbox.

That poor guy between them.

Then maybe we should be bombing Trump’s yacht instead.

Only if the Archduke Ferdinand is on it.

Wow, great finish by Biden. Strong.

Biden is appointing a chief prosecutor to go after pandemic fraud. I like that!