Shrapnel can also be real bitchy. Stuff like: you find out in 2k miles you were leaking transmission fluid from a small shrapnel-induced fracture and now the vehicle won’t shift; causing ‘buy another whole vehicle’ to become a reasonable thought.

Yea, it’s amazing how fast this can go down. Been F5ing Live UA map every few hours the last few days and almost every time there were notable changes.

This also cements Russia’s loss of their only notable Mediterranean port.

https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2024/8-december-03-syrian-armed-opposition-the-free-syrian-people

Yeah, Democrats have no pipeline to generate top talent. Their last candidate got trounced in the last primary she attended. Democrats didn’t even want her. They got a wake up call in 2016 and failed to fix the problem, they need to take the call this time and fix it.

there is no longer any mechanism to make them so…it’s the fact that there are no means to make that happen

The vast majority of Ukraine aid was specifically mandated by Congress. This, for example, was $60B in April. I’m not sure what you are referring to when you say that there is ‘no means to make that happen’ when there clearly is.

If your complaint is that people voted in too many Republicans and Republicans won’t do what you or I want, I would argue that Democrats should step up their game and earn more votes next election.

Discretionary spending is a thing. Multiple arms shipments have already been made via executive decision and not congressional mandate.

Absolutely. That is were notable portions are currently coming from. Biden gave a huge chunk of discretionary spending to Ukraine and some to Israel and some in support of Syrian rebels. This funding, critically, is also Congressionally approved and limited; it isn’t a blank check, Congress sets whatever limits they deem fit on it.

Your description of a dictator doesn’t need to include “sends support to allies” unless you have a bone to pick.

It comes from what we were talking about: something that would require, as you put it “send[ing] anything from the military and it’s impossible to prosecute him or the act as per the Supreme Court saying presidents enjoy absolute immunity?”. If you are talking about prosecutions and presidential immunity, we aren’t talking about Congressionally approved funding.

In summary, Congressionally approved funding good (this includes discretionary spending by definition). While sending military aid that would require prosecutions and presidential immunity, bad.

It’s blatantly illegal for the commander in chief to dictate military spending/logistics?

Congress sets the parameters for how money is spent. You certainly don’t like the next president, yet you encourage presidents to blatantly ignore budget requirements from Congress? Furthermore, you encourage the military to ignore Congress and do whatever illegal stuff the president asks of them?

No, I do not want a dictator. Nor should you.

If you can convince the military to do blatantly illegal stuff, than sure. But I wouldn’t bet (nor would I want) the military doing blatantly illegal stuff, just because it happens to be convenient this one time.

That is a pretty big deal. Cruise missiles have always been in short supply from the West. From what I understand, these Palianysias are pretty capable.

It’s so much more effective to hit a factory than hit each individual product it produced as they are being used against you.

It continues to gather interest. If you don’t pay it down, you will have a larger loan in the future.

Pay your debt.

Yeah, Poland might as well export whatever Swiss arms they currently have to Ukraine . It isn’t like Poland is going to buy more Swiss arms that can’t be used against against their largest geopolitical threat.

Seriously though, Swiss arms cannot be used in war. What a dumb situation the Swiss put themselves in.

Edit: Perun did a great video on this: Global Arms Exports - Winners, losers & trends in the race to rearm. In these times of global arms shortages, arms export business is booming. With the exception of Russian and Swiss arms (though, Russia’s arms are booming in a different way ;p).

Badaboom indeed!

‘Vote for me or you are a bad person’ doesn’t sell, never has. Democrats had a wakeup call 8 years ago and let it pass them by. Hopefully they take it this time and strengthen the party and candidates.

Thank you for the solid points. People are dooming way too hard, simply because their preferred candidate lost this round. There is an opportunity for Democrats to improve themselves. They had that wakeup call 8 years ago, and they didn’t take it. Hopefully they will this time and strengthen the quality of the party and the candidates. Simply being ‘not Republican’, their primary strategy, isn’t enough.

teetering on brink of another civil war

Shit has to get much, much, much worse before people are willing to take up arms against their own family member 'en mass. A civil war isn’t one in which you fight a far away enemy, a civil war is one in which many of your family members and friends are on the opposite side. We are nowhere near a civil war, not even close.

Assuming you are talking about who won the US presidential election. Happened 8 years ago too, it wasn’t the end of America then. It won’t be the end of America now.

Glad to hear the UK is doing their part!

I think it is just the earth. It’s round and gets physically in the way of the signal as you approach the ground.

For this war, that was a pretty large assault! That first hit looks like it may have gotten a pair of vehicles too!

Yep, we can each do our individual part. Ukraine has a direct donation page at United 24. I sent some more money the day after the election, figured they could use it.