This is the sort of American tourist that makes me feel deeply embarrassed when I visit other countries

Serious question: what’s the card Russia would play to “escalate the retaliatory response” here?

• they already invaded a peaceful neighboring country - once unofficially in 2014, and then converted it to an official invasion in 2022
• they are clearly not able to exert any more conventional force on Ukraine, because they’ve been hollowing out their own military to do what they’ve accomplished so far
• they’re already (and, history note, have been for literal centuries) working to ethically cleanse and culturally genocide Ukraine
• they’ve already used chemical weapons in more than a few places
• they’re not going to use bioweapons, because that’s just gonna boomerang back into their face
• they’re not going to start using tactical nukes, because that would sure as fuck get the Bundeswehr and Wojsko Polskie and Forces armées françaises and friends to directly commit a bunch of tank divisions and air support to the conflict
• theyre not going to start using strategic nukes because that would end with (yes, a lot of other catastrophic damage, but) Russia effectively ceasing to exist

Russia’s response here is, in the realm of geopolitical calculus, essentially meaningless, and not a credible retaliatory response.

Or put another way: Russia isn’t playing any geopolitical cards as a response because it can’t.

You are focusing on the wrong thing

The media is doing this intentionally

I’m becoming more certain by the day that that ship has sailed, and the best way forward may genuinely be balkanization.

Why are we still talking about “constitutional bedrock”?

Because that shit has been dynamited and strip-mined into irrelevance. The mythical “checks and balances” have largely failed to materialize - definitely now, but also in a more subtle fashion over the last decade or three. This is just the final act, wherein they start ignoring it wholesale.

No, it’s pretty obviously being used as a noun here.

Why are people still convinced that the courts have any meaningful power anymore? The orangeboi regime has already flagrantly ignored a ton of court rulings; they’ll continue to ignore more court rulings. They don’t care. It’s not “who’s gonna let me”; it’s “who’s gonna stop me”. Orangeboi et al have inserted their own loyalist flunkies into the leadership of all the organizations that can effectively function as the enforcement of court decisions. There are no guardrails anymore. “Checks and balances” is and always was a gentlemen’s agreement, and it’s no longer being honored.

What the actual fuck even is this timeline anymore

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/19038398

You joke but there’s a patent for that exact technology

everything’s computer

They still need money for their jets, ICE and defense contractors bank accounts.

well Clinton’s on there too

GOOD. If he is, he should get nailed for it. I’m not a fucking Clinton fanboi.

As an American, it’s pretty fucking aggravating watching blue collar workers vote against their (and everyone else’s, save for rich people’s) interests in a statistically-significant fashion.

If you stare at it long enough the clouds start to move a little

Considering who is running the FBI now, the most charitable reception this news should get is “deeply skeptical”

Hey guys, remember the poop knife?

it’s m[or[ule]]bin’ time