the russian collapse into religious backwardsness since the fall of communism is actually quite total.

what is it like, actually? it's like the american south.

...in the 1800s.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-orthodox-protests-monastery-factory-wont-make-condoms/28185280.html

this is about as good of a source as you get, when it comes to these things.

this is a more convincing explanation than the one coming to us from the white house. sorry, white house. up your game, i guess?

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/12/trump-withholds-syria-sarin-evidence/

john mccain is a pathological liar.

but, he's on point with his accusations around this.

if the senate was seriously concerned about people in the united states working for russia, the people they'd be investigating would be ron and rand paul. this goes way back, too. they work through the remnants of the john birch society, and their media point man is alex jones. i mean, it's there - i pointed it out years ago. it was climategate that convinced me that jones is a russian spy. and, the coverage around ron paul on rt was always just fawning - it was always crystal clear who the russians supported, and it was always ron paul. but i don't get the impression that trump was ever meaningfully integrated into this network. maybe they thought they were using each other, or maybe trump didn't really understand who he was palling around with. i dunno. but, he wants to work with deep capital and the pentagon, not with kgb propagandists.

montenegro is an obvious strategic advantage without the liabilities of expansion further east, and the only ways to argue against it are through ignorance or malice. i don't get the impression that rand paul would need help locating the country on a map.

whether the people of this country want to be in nato is another question, altogether.

http://time.com/4718958/montenegro-nato-rand-paul/

sure.

but, what happens next is that opportunistic conservatives take control of the situation and swing the party further to the right. it's an opportunity to "widen the tent", guys. or do you want to squander the opportunity, and see the tea party come back?

then, we wake up from the nightmare and realize that rahm emanuel is president. because you didn't want to re-elect trump, and you had to pick somebody that could take advantage of the restlessness in the centre...

well, you'd vote for rahm emanuel instead of trump, wouldn't you? and you actually would, too.

i've been over this repeatedly: why do you only have two parties? you'll never get anywhere as long as you only have two parties. you'll just keep swinging further right.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/james-thompson-ron-estes-kansas-election-215017

guys, it's not complicated.

montenegro is a historically slavic state with the potential to house russian naval facilities across the adriatic from a g7 country. nato has strong motives to keep the russians out of this space.

why is there speculation about other things?

there is another reason why it is stupid to pressure the russians and the chinese at the same time, and that is because it brings them together.

if the americans were smart, they would be trying to play them off against each other. the chinese are no friends to the russians. there is a lot of room to position in, there.

but, of course, the americans are not smart.

if you attack them both at the same time, the chinese will build those short term alliances out of necessity, despite the fact that they contradict their long term goals.

i'm going to keep my analysis on north korea terse.

it is a stalemate. it has been for decades. and, it's unclear what the americans think they can gain by breaking it.

it's not even "if". it's "why?". at least there are reasons to get into a fight in syria. does trump want to cross the yalu?

in 2017, the reality is that the united states has no strategic objective in invading korea. it would be reckless and idiotic.

regardless, the old truth remains: you can't declare a war on the north without declaring a war on china. it doesn't matter how irritating the north gets; if they have to, it will be the chinese that take them out, so they can occupy the space directly.

the president is driven by the news cycle.

maybe i should clarify in specific language: the clark swing was a hidden movement from conservatives to liberals, on the behest of joe clark, and in reaction to stephen harper, that allowed the liberals to hold on to power under paul martin, despite substantial losses to the ndp on their left. this was self-defeating to the right, as the conservatives would have won in 2004 had it not been for the clark swing keeping the liberals in place.

the red tory is similar to the liberal republican. they don't like social conservatism, they don't like wars of aggression and they were concerned about harper's apparent desire to emulate american conservative politics. the whole evangelical thing has never done well here. the clark swing allowed them to define themselves to around 8%. please understand that clark was very aggressive in his endorsement, and that it was acknowledged at the time that he moved older tory voters.

older tory voters. in 2004.

it took harper until 2011 to finally consolidate the red tories, and only in the face of michael ignatieff, who represented everything they feared from harper.

there was a roughly 8% shift from the conservatives to the liberals in the 2015 election.

but, this was always generational. these proportions are bound to shift.

how about i put it to you like this: you don't want to project the clark swing past the life of the man, himself. in fact, his voters are older than him. it will almost certainly pass before he does.

joe clark is 77 years old.

is trudeau subtly trying to tell us he's a crook, with this constant mulroney intrigue?

is that it?

i'm the one who identified the clark swing. i get it.

but, it's just more proof that this government is toxic.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mulroney-cabinet-nafta-1.4056112

what?

this is some kind of 4chan troll, right?

what the fuck.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/11/sean-spicer-hitler-chemical-weapons-holocaust-assad

When Trump and his senior officials said, as they did just two weeks ago, that they had little interest in ridding Syria of dictator Bashar Assad, Canada was agreeable.

But when Trump reversed himself, bombed a Syrian government airfield, and called for Assad’s removal, Trudeau gamely changed course too.

it's the damned truth of it.

so, if you had any question as to why he wants a security council seat, it should be clear: it's to brown-nose the americans with.

if he gets that seat, he's going to decimate his own party.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/04/11/justin-trudeau-should-defy-donald-trumps-demand-for-regime-change-in-syria-walkom.html

at some point, we have to remember that it is the job of parents to "protect children" - whatever that means.

she's an obscure candidate that the media is giving too much time to because she says controversial things. but, she's neither championed by the small government types, nor by the populist types. shit happens when you have a lot of candidates, but right now she doesn't appear to be a serious candidate.

regardless...

this is why this angle on kids is the wrong angle. no matter how you square this, or how you argue it, whatever effects that pot has on kids can never be an argument to imprison adults. otherwise, we'd bring back alcohol prohibition and make it impossible to buy cigarettes. it's just not what this should be about.

the status quo obviously isn't working with kids. i'm beyond sympathetic to the idea that a new approach is required. but, i remember kids in junior high school drinking vodka out of tupperware containers. there's some level of access that's inevitable.

who will address the issue properly as a means to free up public resources and allow adults to participate in an enjoyable behaviour without risking being arrested?

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/04/11/kellie-leitch-says-marijuana-is-a-dangerous-drug-vows-to-undo-liberal-plan-to-legalize-it.html