Stoker

Doesn't Ukraine's constitution specifically disallows elections during a period of martial law? If Zelensky did a 180 and held elections today, the US right would immediately pivot and say they're illegitimate because they didn't include the more pro-Russian voters who used to reside in Crimea and the Donbass (who are mostly dead conscript/cannon fodder in the "separatist" armies at this point). And to be fair, how legitimate would elections be in the US if New York was occupied by the Canadians, California by Mexico, and Florida by the Cubans? You talk as if the wood chipper is an option to avoid, but if you're a Ukrainian man your options aren't wood chipper / no wood chipper - they're Ukrainian army, Russian army, gulag. I know which one I'd pick.

What's the alternative? The Russians have been perfectly happy to massacre Ukrainians or conscript every man from 18-65 in occupied territories and use them to clear minefields with their feet. The Ukrainians should roll over and let bad things be done to them because at least then one side will survive (to invade the Baltics in a few years, at least)? Regimes that don't have moral compasses are often confused by those that do. The Russians and now the US government doesn't understand why the Ukrainians would fight for freedom when it will cost them so much. Much cheaper to accept a degree of oppression than to fight. We're lucky we felt differently when it was us against the British.

Don't worry, everyone unlawfully fired will eventually be getting full back pay, which should help with the deficit somehow. And we'll have to increase federal civ salaries in the future, because a lot of their total compensation was job security, and that's gone. I'm honestly somewhat confused that the administration didn't even try to cover their tracks and pretend to do things lawfully - like, you'd think with some of Musk's patented AI they could have invented some BS that actually alluded to a reason to be fired. Firing every single probationary employee for "poor performance" means you're just bunch of liars. Which, I guess, is the point - if you're willing to lie and fire people who you hired, you're probably loyal enough to say the sky is green if the boss says so.

You can flatten the rank structure if you increase the pay. It isn't surprising we don't track good talent to be GOs when an O-7 makes less than a 3rd year FO at mainline. Our military pay structure hasn't been "designed" in any meaningful way in decades - we've just done percentage increases across the board, and it isn't reasonable to expect people to serve out of self-denying patriotism absent an ongoing existential war. More leadership positions is a long trend in military history. I'm sure Alexander had some folks complaining about paying for front and rear file leaders in the phalanx, when the Athenians used to get away with just front file leaders.

The most horrifying thing you learn about ethnic cleansing / forced population transfer is that, well, it works. The Greco-Turkish population transfers of the 20s caused a lot of human misery, but in the end, two populations that hadn't been able to get along for a millennium didn't live in the same neighborhood anymore. They might not be friends today by any means, but you rarely have Greek death squads going door to door looking for Turks in the last hundred years (Cyprus excluded, maybe). Ditto for India and Pakistan, to a degree, Germany/Russia/Poland after WWII, Jews being kicked out of 40+ Muslim countries. The sad fact is that most of the world isn't enlightened enough to live like New Yorkers, in peace with neighbors their parents would have despised and their grandparents actively tried to kill. I do wonder how much lingering savagery we've perpetuated by demanding that other peoples pretend to all get along together, rather than achieve lasting separation (see: every post-colonial African state where we assume different groups can all get along inside a single set of lines we drew).

Anyone actually talk to real live Canadians in the last week or so? I have, on both sides of their political spectrum, and man, next time we ask for help, they aren't coming. They'll probably build that pipeline to the Pacific too, so they have the option to sell their oil to the Chinese instead of us being their only customer. They're literally booing our national anthem and taking the bourbon off the shelves. It's a bigly win, if you speak Russian.

It's not a Nazi salute - it's just a gesture intentionally close enough to a Nazi salute to let the people who like Nazi salutes know that you're really on their side.

If you're fighting fires with water and trucks, your policy and planning is already a disaster. We didn't dramatically lower the loss from household fires by putting a fire truck on every block, we did it by building code changes, insurance pressure, and consumer product safety to reduce flammability of household materials. You won't stop California fires by dumping an extra billion into firefighting, but you might do it by mandating (by code and insurance) metal roofs/siding, making it take less than a decade to get approval for controlled burns, and a dozen other long term policy changes that have been suggested and mostly ignored by Californians for decades. Luckily, if you don't do anything to mitigate your home's fire risk in California, the state will still insure you and pay for it via a tax on everyone whose risk is low enough to get private insurance. That surely won't lead to problems down the road.

We pay people more, and ban them from owning/trading anything but TSP "letter" funds or their functional equivalents. Seems like a fair solution. Term limits don't really work the way people think they will. Everyone expects it will turn Congress into Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but really it just prevents anyone from getting particularly "good" at being a legislator. Which just transfers even more power to lobbyists and staffers, because people in office literally don't know how to write a bill.

To paraphrase Dr. Evil, $200k just isn't that much much money anymore. If you're a professional with an advanced degree and you take a job in the DC area knowing it's only ever going to pay, say, $100k, you're an idiot who will be crushed by the high cost of living. By and large, the people making over $200k are highly educated professionals who could easily earn more in the private sector but prefer the stability/quality of life the Feds offer. Those latter benefits appear likely to be going away with the new administration, however. We'll see an exodus into the private sector and retirement over the next four years, but it won't be the useless GS-11s, it'll be the irreplaceable hard workers who make the government work. The useless folks will stick around and be happy that nothing is getting done.

We as a society have made a serious mistake in being okay with our highest government positions (judges/justices, congresspeople, state reps, etc.) poorly paid. Fauci has a lot of flaws, but the requirements to fill Fauci's position are pretty much "world-renowned physician-administrator willing to live in the DC metro area." $416k seems like a bargain for that when senior physicians at pretty much any major hospital are making that.

They're not really that good, it's just that for a lot of people, it's more important to feel smart and correct than for their country to succeed.

Really, Azerbaijan Airlines backed Russia into this corner. They have no one but themselves to blame. If they weren't flying airplanes to Grozny, the Russians wouldn't have felt the need to defend themselves. /s

Poland was part of the German Reich only twenty years ago! The Allies have really put us in a threatened position by surrounding us with an alliance, the Little Entente! Many of the people there really vibe with us ethnically and not the Poles! Poland is really just a corrupt autocratic state anyways. Besides, there's no way Britain/France can help Poland, so it's a waste trying.

It seems primarily like her problem with serving is the Israel-Hamas conflcit... If your opposition to war is based on objections to a particular war, congratulations! You aren't a conscientious objector. Just another idiot who eats up Russian information warfare. Here's an idea - if you ever notice that the cause/belief/conspiracy you've recently decided to follow is something that would get an FSB officer promoted for spreading, reconsider your cause/belief/conspiracy. I'm also not impressed by anyone who sees what our enemies choose to do to those who cross them, and decides, "Yes, I will give those bad people a monopoly of violence against myself and my loved ones."