Recent Comments

1. about 1 hour ago on Jeff Danziger

   And that was without even knowing about Kapitan/1st (Designated Commodore) V. A. Arkhipov and his cool-headed refusal to let his wolfpack launch the nuke fish they were carrying.

   Nuke fish whose presence was unknown to the Dummkopf US admiral who authorised dropping toy depth charges to force the subs to surface.

2. about 1 hour ago on Ted Rall

   However could you possibly know such a thing?

   During the 6 years between returning from Germany and going back to school to train in clinical psych, I fed the kids and cats and paid the mortgage as a commercial artist and copywriter, winning at least one award, possibly two, in international competition.

   I think my experience should give my opinion some weight, more than yours certainly. What you imagine to be “garbage” is Ted’s distinctive personal style, which he has modified greatly, while maintaining its essential nature, since he started with gocomics.

3. about 2 hours ago on Ted Rall

   +1000

4. about 2 hours ago on Ted Rall

   To be fair, Ukraine ignores the Minsk Accord and even admitted they were crossing their fingers when they signed the. [sic]

   I haven’t, until today, studied Minsk 1 at all. I did study the Chatham House analysis of Minsk 2, but wasn’t able to find the actual documents to be signed, and wasn’t sure I could find the time to determine whether Chatham’s analysis was valid.

   Today I read Jacobin’s interview in which a former OSCE diplo was interviewed as to why Minsk 1 flopped. jacobin com/2023/02/wolfgang-sporrer-interview-ukraine-war-diplomacy-minsk-agreements

   Jacobin’s lead-in was that The Minsk Agreements were meant to ease conflict in the Donbas, only to be torn to shreds by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

   It is Sporrer’s view that it flopped because it was constructed on a false premise, one Ukraina wasn’t willing to sign off on.

   Sporrer: First, the Minsk agreements did not address the root cause of the conflict. It was stipulated, so to speak, that there was or had been some kind of ethnic conflict between Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine, and that this was the reason for the outbreak of violence. . . .

   [But that is nonsense.] What this conflict is fundamentally about is Russia wanting to exert influence over the domestic and foreign policy orientation of the government in Kyiv.

   In brief, according to Sporrer, Putin wants Russia to be an empire again. And Putin wants Ukraina to knuckle under and be the first diamond in Putin’s crown (my words, not Sporrer’s).

   Zelenskij speaks for the Ukrainian people when he rejects that role; Ukraina has already had all the Russian rule it could ever use, and will fight to the death to avoid having to accept more of it (again my words).

   As to Minsk 2, given that Chatham’s analysis is even basically correct, I can completely understand Zelenskij’s unwillingness to have anything to do with it. It would basically require Ukraina to fund microstates that would answer to Moscow rather than Kyiv.

5. about 5 hours ago on Ted Rall

   these candidates could run for local & state offices and change how ballot access is provided in individual states.

   Those decisions are not taken at the lower levels.

6. about 6 hours ago on Jeff Danziger

   Iran used to be quite peaceful. When was the last time they started something?

7. about 6 hours ago on Ted Rall

   I think you meant to write “why would Ukraina…”, since it’s Russia that doesn’t honor its agreements (viz Budapest Memo),predecessor agreements (USSR’s 1954 assignment of Krym to Ukraina), or even international law (Kellogg-Briand 1928 forbids war for land)

8. about 6 hours ago on Ted Rall

   Exactly! Well said.

9. about 7 hours ago on Ted Rall

   Are you up for a dialog about this? I hope so.

   I ask in part because the political situation surrounding the 1864 election in the US was quite different to the situation in Ukraina.

10. about 7 hours ago on Brian McFadden

    This whole ’toon might reflect .001% of housing market transactions. If that.

    Are you a millionaire yet? Because you sound like you think you know more about it than researchers who have reported that many more than your 1 in 10,000 have been wrecked by the predators