I sure am glad that the American people as a whole aren't nearly as hypersensitive as you are, Kick. Heh.

Your proclamations regarding the "American people as a whole" are as patently incorrect as your declarations regarding me personally. In fact, you could not be more wrong about me.

If you insist that Speak2 "left out" your assertion that "the American people" were in support of an engineered takeover of the federal judiciary by Roberts and/or McConnell, I can't help the fact that you're obviously seriously misinformed regarding "the American people."

As for the Ukrainian people ... there is no reason on this earth why they should have been made to suffer the horrors of this stupid and unecessary war. None, whatsoever.

This one is not hard, Elizabeth. How was war not necessary? When Putin declared war on Ukraine and invaded their country, they had two choices:

(1) Surrender immediately.
(2) Fight for their freedom.

Your insistence that war in Ukraine could have been easily avoided by the appeasement of Putin and his "NATO concerns" is ridiculous on its face. If Putin was actually concerned about NATO nations, capturing Ukraine would constitute a self-created self-fulfilling prophecy with multiple NATO nations bordering Russia on the East.

Putin's aim at the outset was obviously the expansion of Russia. Not rocket science.

Which, I hasten to add, doesn't bode well for all the rest of us,
either. :(

War is unavoidable when an authoritarian wishes to own you while you insist on retaining your freedom.

Yeah, that's me being my hypersensitive self. Heh.

I sure am glad that the American people as a whole aren't nearly as hypersensitive as you are, Kick. Heh.

As for the Ukrainian people ... there is no reason on this earth why they should have been made to suffer the horrors of this stupid and unecessary war. None, whatsoever.

Which, I hasten to add, doesn't bode well for all the rest of us, either. :(

You left out the bit about the support for this of the American people.

I would wager without hesitation that it wasn't "left out" at all. I'm going to go out on a limb here and postulate that Speak2 doesn't paint all Americans with as broad a brush as you're suggesting is required, Canada.

If you feel that way about Americans, maybe you can see your way fit to apply that same broad brush of yours to the Ukrainians who supported Zelensky. Just saying. :)

Sorry for the opacity. I actually intended my [10] to be attached as continuation at the end of [9].

@crs,

That's three negatives in one dependent clause. I'm seriously not sure what you mean.

You may be out of step with reality devoting so much verbiage to the insanity of some elements of U.S. domestic politics, when the world at large is coming unglued.

The economy, U.S. and international, is poisd to sink the Democrat party for a generation.

I just started reading the first few paragraphs of the George Packer piece you posted but I don't have time right now to read it properly. Can't wait to finish it and discuss!

The quote you posted from it hooked me real good! :)

This was true even before Roberts and McConnell engineered the takeover of the federal judiciary.

You left out the bit about the support for this of the American people.

Now, THERE is an idea that gets put into little use, if any. :(

That scares me. We've seen many rabid and radical republican (supreme court) justices twist their reasoning and logical processes to find ways to achieve the outcomes they want. This was true even before Roberts and McConnell engineered the takeover of the federal judiciary.

The number of Republicans who will actually answer with the truth -- that Trump lost and Biden won, in a free and fair and secure election -- seems to be limited to just two: Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

As the committee hearings have thus far shown, all one needs to do in order to get the facts out of Trump's own family members and multiple Republicans in Trump's own orbit: Put them under oath under penalty of perjury.

Those Republicans who've been subpoenaed and already testified as to the facts are shining a ginormous klieg light on the two reasons why there are so many Republicans who attempted to outright kill the committee and who have refused to testify:

(1) Testify by telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and you're obviously putting yourself in legal jeopardy.

(2) Perjure yourself, and you're obviously putting yourself in legal jeopardy.

It'll sure be interesting to see how many of these criminals refuse to comply with subpoenas from the Department of Justice. :)

In Free America, the winners are the makers, and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government. In Smart America, the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers are the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress. In Real America, the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland, and the losers are treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy the country. In Just America, the winners are the marginalized groups, and the losers are the dominant groups that want to go on dominating.

I don’t much want to live in the republic of any of them.