Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Old Man]

6 hours ago, Sociotard said:

Oh, piss nuggets.

 

Russia announced a partial mobilization, which means 300,000 reservists.

 

https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-717706

 

300,000 untrained, unarmed, unfed reservists on foot aren't going to move the needle in Ukraine.  Does make the entire conflict that much more ghastly though.

[Sociotard]

Reservists aren't just conscripts. They are civilians with prior military experience.

 

And Russia has loads of weapons. They have logistical problems, but the reservists won't be unarmed.

[Old Man]

Well yeah, technically you could hand them all sharp sticks and consider them 'armed'.  It's even possible Russia has 300,000 Mosin-Nagants in storage somewhere.  What the Russians do not have is adequate numbers of the missiles, tanks, armored vehicles, and trucks that are necessary to wage modern warfare.  And most of all the Russians are desperately short of the communications and command structure that it would take to actually use 300,000 infantry effectively.

 

So whatever percentage of those reservists that don't flee Russia or literally cripple themselves to get out of serving, will be handed some museum piece weapon and put on a one way train to Ukraine to sit in a trench and wait to be killed.  It might slow the inevitable Ukrainian advance a bit, if they don't break and run away like they did around Kharkiv.

[unclevlad]

21 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Well yeah, technically you could hand them all sharp sticks and consider them 'armed'.  It's even possible Russia has 300,000 Mosin-Nagants in storage somewhere.  What the Russians do not have is adequate numbers of the missiles, tanks, armored vehicles, and trucks that are necessary to wage modern warfare.  And most of all the Russians are desperately short of the communications and command structure that it would take to actually use 300,000 infantry effectively.

 

So whatever percentage of those reservists that don't flee Russia or literally cripple themselves to get out of serving, will be handed some museum piece weapon and put on a one way train to Ukraine to sit in a trench and wait to be killed.  It might slow the inevitable Ukrainian advance a bit, if they don't break and run away like they did around Kharkiv.

 

Even if the incoming troops are somewhat better off than you suggest, the logistical and command/control failures have been blatant, frequent, and ongoing.  It's quite possible that this many more troops will allow a Russian advance...potentially at high cost...but for how long?  They'll fall flat on their faces again;  that's perhaps been the one consistent aspect here.

 

And yeah.  This is becoming...if it's not now...an atrocity against the Russians, almost as much as against Ukraine.

[BNakagawa]

NY AG is suing Trump Organization for 250M.

 

[Pattern Ghost]

10 hours ago, Sociotard said:

Russia announced a partial mobilization, which means 300,000 reservists.

 

I read "reservists" in this context as "conscripts." We've already seen the quality of their first batch of troops. If anything, I feel a little bad for those 300,000.

 

I can't remember if it's been mentioned in this thread yet, but I'd read that Russia doesn't have Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), which means no direct supervision over the bulk of their troops. Without NCOs to enforce discipline, keep the troops focused on their mission, train and motivate the rank and file . . .  you don't have an effective ground force. Nothing changes for them over the first round of the invasion in this regard. They lack good command and control. Logistics are a shambles. Equipment budget has been spent on yachts, hookers and blow for their generals.

 

I think this is a desperate attempt to turn things around and try to hold ground. Which means the end is near. If you can't hold the ground, punitively bombing it to rubble doesn't help with your long term goals. The main thing I worry about is that punitive bombing. Russia, and Putin in particular, is a spiteful so-and-so, and likely to simply continue the ongoing murder spree, or ramp it up via bombardment.

[DShomshak]

Well, on BBC today they interviewed a Russian who fled to Armenia at the start of Putin's war, in part to forestall any chance of being called up. As he deswcribed it, just about all Russian men do a year of compulsory  ilitary service... but one could hardly call it "training." As a college graduate, he was rather arbitrarily made a lieutenant, and received less than an hour's "training" with automatic rifles. At that, it was more than most conscripts receive. So while Russia theoretically has millions of "reservists," in practice they are raw recruits being sent to slaughter: "Cannon Meat," in the Russian version of the English phrase.

 

The poor bastards.

 

(I'll post a link if I can find the segment online.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

7 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I read "reservists" in this context as "conscripts." We've already seen the quality of their first batch of troops. If anything, I feel a little bad for those 300,000.

 

 

Russian reservists aren't like American ones. The latter continue to participate in regular training exercises -- they're very nearly on par with the full-time troops as soon as they're called up. Russian reservists may have had a year or two of service a decade ago. They'll be taking a refresher course of maybe a few weeks, before being sent against soldiers with months of front-line combat experience. Many Russians will die, and I expect many more to desert.

[Lord Liaden]

10 hours ago, Sociotard said:

 

And Russia has loads of weapons. They have logistical problems, but the reservists won't be unarmed.

 

Many Russian weapons and vehicles are old, and have frequently shown the wear that comes from years of inadequate storage and maintenance in the country's harsh climate. What the troops in Ukraine have been given is what they had adequately working. And Russia has resorted to buying replacement ammunition from North Korea, since a lot of it was originally sold to them by Russia. Korean storage is probably no better than Russia's, so it won't be surprising if a significant fraction of it is defective.

 

What's interesting to consider is whether Russia's nuclear arsenal has been treated the same. If the performance of Russia's conventional forces is an embarrassment, imagine how it will look if Putin orders a tac nuke lobbed into Ukraine, and it's a dud.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Russian reservists aren't like American ones.

 

I served in Cold War Berlin. Even in the Soviet heyday, they weren't anywhere near on par with American troops. 😉

[Pariah]

His name is John Gibbs, and he just won a primary against Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, who had voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump .

 

GOP congressional candidate said US suffered from women's suffrage and praised organization trying to repeal 19th Amendment

[Tom]

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

What's interesting to consider is whether Russia's nuclear arsenal has been treated the same. If the performance of Russia's conventional forces is an embarrassment, imagine how it will look if Putin orders a tac nuke lobbed into Ukraine, and it's a dud.

 

Part of me is wondering if this is the real reason Russia hasn't used a nuke yet.

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

His name is John Gibbs, and he just won a primary against Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, who had voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump .

 

GOP congressional candidate said US suffered from women's suffrage and praised organization trying to repeal 19th Amendment

 

This was to be expected. The GOP and their base have both become radicalized. From a tactical standpoint, it's actually better for the Democrat candidates if all their opponents are loons like this. That's more likely to motivate every non-radical to vote against the Republicans. Of course it will be bad if Republicans like this actually win enough seats in Congress to dictate policy.

[DShomshak]

On 9/21/2022 at 8:00 AM, Sociotard said:

I want you to imagine it is winter. Supply lines are disrupted and your unit hasn't eaten well. It is 3 AM and you were assigned sentry duty. This is your partner.

 

 

If I were a Russian general given this guy, and, y'know, Evil, I would give this guy a machete and a motorcycle with a full tank of gas, point him at free Ukrainian territory, and say, "Here's your buffet. Indulge yourself." He's off my hands, and makes more trouble for Ukraine.

 

I suspect this is more or less the plan in the Wagner Group recruiting from prisons. They aren't seeking soldiers. They're seeking brigands to commit atrocities. Even the ones who desert are useful if they desert in Ukraine and prey on that populace. And even if they head back to Russia, eh, they aren't likely to rob and kill anyone who matters.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Once again, Putin threatened nuclear escalation against NATO. How seriously should we take his saber-rattling? Russia and Ukraine military expert Alexander Vindman offers his opinion. tl;dr: Putin is not suicidally insane. His goal is to live to fight another day. US and NATO aide to Ukraine will not push him to the Big Hot One. But it is deeply not useful for national security people to be fretting about whether the US can restore peaceful and productive relations with Russia. Putin burned that bridge himself. It's Cold War II; deal with it.

 

A former national security official explores what could be next in the Ukraine war | NPR Illinois

 

Dean Shomshak

[Cygnia]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

This was to be expected. The GOP and their base have both become radicalized. From a tactical standpoint, it's actually better for the Democrat candidates if all their opponents are loons like this. That's more likely to motivate every non-radical to vote against the Republicans. Of course it will be bad if Republicans like this actually win enough seats in Congress to dictate policy.

GOP betting on ‘sadism’ — and if they’re right we’re all heading into the ‘abyss’: columnist

[Starlord]

[TrickstaPriest]

1 hour ago, Starlord said:

 

Kind of wild, isn't it.

 

The money changing hands in the Trump family is something like 100 fold of what Biden/Hunter is accused of.  Even cutting out the genuine fake news about Trump, the amount of actual things he's confirmed to have done is easily 10 fold the possible harm of what Biden is being accused of doing.

 

The only way people can get away with this is under-valuing the possible damage of a mob attempting to seize the capitol building (or stealing government secrets) and equivocating BLM rioting (and there was at least some rioting) to it.  That equivocation seems easy if you just evaluate damage across an entire country over months to a single event at a defended stone building that can't burn.  

 

Except the stated goal of the protests wouldn't, you know, completely seize control of the entire country.  The stated goal of stealing government secrets or of getting a 2 BILLION dollar Saudi deal is on another scale compared to trying to sell government influence for your dad (edit: for less than 1% of that saudi deal).

 

It's actually nuts when you look at the point of doing any of those things.  The George Floyd protest was incomparable because it was a half-year long, country-wide (nearly world-wide) protest with the stated goal of stopping police violence on ethnic groups.

 

What was the goal of seizing the capitol building again?

 

Oh, right.

 

When we talk about 'good' and 'evil', we actually care about motives and goals in this country.  Or at least we thought we did.

 

edit:  And to be clear, we also look at scale and degree of harm caused in deciding how dangerous that 'evil' is.

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Cygnia said:

GOP betting on ‘sadism’ — and if they’re right we’re all heading into the ‘abyss’: columnist

 

From the comments to the story:

 

Quote

Cruelty, hate, dimishment and fear. These are the driving forces of DeSantis and Trump and anyone who believes in them a valid leaders.

 

Typos are as per the comment, but hey, if the writer's on his phone, it happens.

Can't argue much, altho I might pick slightly different (but not less critical) adjectives, save to say those go back further than Trump.  Those have been in the Republican campaigning playbook for a long time.  

[unclevlad]

Op-ed about the roots of the current state of the Republican Party, from a former Vermont Congressman, booted in his primary run for re-election for voting for gun control...in 1991.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/opinion/moderate-republicans-gingrich-trump-new-england.html

 

 

[Dr. MID-Nite]

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

This was to be expected. The GOP and their base have both become radicalized. From a tactical standpoint, it's actually better for the Democrat candidates if all their opponents are loons like this. That's more likely to motivate every non-radical to vote against the Republicans. Of course it will be bad if Republicans like this actually win enough seats in Congress to dictate policy.

 

It's a dangerous game they're playing.

[Sociotard]

Let me see if I've written this up correctly,

3d6 Minor Transform (classified documents into unclassified documents) +1 BoECV, +1/4 Invisible Power Effects (documentation-related skills), -1/2 No Range
45 points

Kind of weird and I'm not sure I'd allow it. I'm not sure documents have an Ego stat, even top secret nuclear ones.

[Old Man]

BoECV for a dude who obviously used EGO and INT as dump stats...

[TrickstaPriest]

NARA apparently is a radical leftist group now that's hiding documents being sent there.

[Joe Walsh]