Not interested in a butt-kissing presidential candidate: Vivek Ramaswamy Wants to Give Putin Whatever He Wants in Ukraine

Is this a case of complete ignorance of geopolitics, particularly in Europe?

Or is this guy trying to out-Chamberlain Chamberlain (Ol' "Peace In Our Time")

I get that many on the right are complaining about US support of Ukraine. They manage to conflate all other problems they view as unaddressed, as if those problems would be solved had Russia, at Biden's invitation, had not invade Ukraine. That, of course, is no where close to the truth and in a sober moment, even opponents of this support would agree, but not in the midst of a partisan firestorm wherre EVERYTHING BIDEN DOES IS WRO)NG.

Most either don't know, or if they do know, care; that we guaranteed Ukraine's territorial sovereignty/security as a condition of getting rid of their nukes back in 1994, something that, come to think of it, Russia did as well.

The basis for that position, essentially, rests with WHO is doing the support: if Biden wants it, it must be wrong.

But even a broken clock is right twice a day. 

We kind of learned SOMETHING from our isolationism pre-WW2. Many in this country felt the same way about Adolf and the Emperor. How'd that work out for us?

If this guy wants to start by ignoring agreements we made, then what makes anyone believe he'll keep his word about anything else?

Vivek Ramaswamy Wants to Give Putin Whatever He Wants in Ukraine

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has a reckless plan for achieving U.S. global dominance: giving away other countries’ territory.

Ramaswamy is already under fire for his objectively terrible plan to let China invade Taiwan after 2028 if he were elected. Now, the presidential hopeful thinks that Russia should be allowed to keep the parts of Ukraine it currently occupies.

“Our goal should not be for Putin to lose. Our goal should be for America to win,” Ramaswamy told CNN Thursday night.

Ramaswamy said that U.S. involvement in Ukraine is strengthening the Russia–China military alliance—and the only way to break that alliance and bring Russia around to the American side is to give Vladimir Putin what he wants.

More:

Today's adventure in automotive nightmares.

So, yesterday, having failed to anticipate what is likely obvious to any other wrench, I discovered that the engine I am attempting to swap from an 85 Camaro will not, in fact, fit in a 69 Camaro, primarily because the oil pan is too thick over the cross member:

Both 1 and 2 are the oil pan. 1 is the oil pan sitting on the cross member. I also need to transfer the motor mounts from the 85, but I can do that.

So now, I'm looking for an oil pan that will work AND, of course, an oil pan gasket.

Here's the problem:

Here's the oil pan gasket based on the information concerning the engine I'm installing: 14093638 5.7 LG SGI  (350 CI) block from the 87-95 Camaro year group.

Here's the oil pan I removed from that same engine:

One of these things is not like the other.

You'll note two things: first, the gasket shows 20 bolt holes. The oil pan I pulled off shows 10 holes meaning the replacement oil pan I want to install (presuming one can be found) also must have 10 holes that line up with those on the block.

Second, I need another oil pan (obviously) but I need one with 10 holes, or I need one where the holes line up on the block with the ten holes that I can use, while just ignoring the remaining 10, unused holes.

I've spent hours looking for an oil pan that will work. I can't be the only guy who's stuck one of these into a 69 Camaro... but trying to find this hurts whatever is left of my brain.

I am undeterred. I'm sure that this planet has been visited by other spaceships and I just need one to give me the coordinates.

So to speak. 

More EV insanity:

Electric vehicles, by definition, are a flat-out joke.

Up-front costs, which are typically miles over MSRP, the costs of replacement batteries, the practically nonexistent functional infrastructure? It's insane to buy EV's.

Government, which typically is equally insane, is demanding we buy one of these turds regardless.

Short-sighted automakers are being bitch-slapped into playing along.  Chrysler, for its part, will soon, essentially, be making ONLY EV's within the next 2 years.  Ford, for ITsS part, will lose $3 billion this year due to their horrific toaster-oven program that's reduced the match stick Lightnings to a punchline in the EV joke.

The irony of all of this is that one wonders: are the leftists, blithely lying through their teeth about the "wonders" of these turds while they do their collective best to ram them down our throats... not unlike the horrific costs and pollution of wind-driven power, remotely aware of the massive shortcomings in the EV realm, the pollution required in construction, the child labor used, the horrific costs; both of initial purchase and subsequent battery replacement... not to mention the equally horrific costs of getting your home/business wired to handle the costs and requirements to charge these beasts (they apparently require 25 times the power use of the average full-size refrigerator) and the shortage of both chargers AND chargers that actually work.

The EV insanity. Are the clowns in Olympia paying attention? Does EVERY legislator ramming this garbage down our throats ONLY use/own an EV?

Of course not. 

Likely not the brightest bulb on the tree, the guy who stupidly bought this thing got raped at the dealership (paying $7500 over MSRP) then got further screwed by the costs of installation and electrical rehab at his home and at work: another $16,000.

Dalbir Bala shares his frustrating experience after purchasing an electric truck

AND THEN, he discovers, as so many others have, that his house-cost EV is a turd. And the costs are insane:

"Fast charging stations – which only charge EV’s up to 90% – cost more than gas for the same mileage. On the family’s first stop in Fargo, North Dakota, it took two hours and $56 to charge his vehicle from 10% to 90%. The charge was good for another 215 miles."

The expenses quickly piled up after Bala purchased the electric truck.

$56 for 215 miles. Even with my Supercharged Mustang, the 11 gallons of gas $56 would buy you at Costco would result in 275 miles of freeway driving (Yes, my V8, 700HP Mustang gets 25 MPG on the freeway) so, yes... when you add the cost of hanging around for 2 hours (Family vacation, down time, equal snacks and activities to keep the kiddies occupied) the costs FAR exceed that of an ICE car.

If you're even THINK about buying one of these worthless toasters, read this story.

Word games the media plays and another way they fail us.

I believe media fails us when they tap dance around reality. Illegal aliens are called undocumented immigrants. Those wounded, even in war, are typically called "injured."

Let's call a spade a spade, and not a shovel. By hiding the reality, and providing something less than brutal accuracy, the true impacts of suicide (And as a veteran involved in saving veterans, the stark reality of it DOES matter... roughly 22 American veterans kill themselves every day here... playing word games doesn't help.)

That failure is everywhere... for example, if someone gets shot over here, they're not "wounded," they're "injured." No... See, athletes suffer injuries while they're playing or training for their sport. Being wounded isn't the result of a game.

The US complains about guns. And then, simultaneously, when someone is wounded by gunfire, they're "injured."

Which to me has always shown the impacts of these things are downplayed and their impacts reduced by failing to use stark, unmistakable, absolutely accurate terminology.

Our veterans aren't being vaporized. For the most part, they make a decision based on a series of circumstances where many feel they have no control over their lives and so, the military solution to regain that control is to end it. (It doesn't have to make sense. But there it is.)

Victims in a robbery/mass shooting aren't being "injured." They're being shot. Someone is spilling their blood. But we play patty cake around the words to lessen their impact when we actually need to have them hit hard.

While we use words to communicate, we actually "see" those words as we process them in our minds. And for the most part, when the word "injured" is used to describe gunshot victims, my picture is of a sprained ankle.

We do that here in many areas. For example, the phrase "illegal alien," which is the legal terminology in law in the US, has been replaced with "undocumented immigrant."

Why?

Because the thought is that one is breaking the law and the other is just missing some paperwork?  When, in reality, they're exactly the same thing?

Words have meaning. And I believe we do a disservice when we use politically correct terminology to lessen the impact of those words. And the lower the impacts of suicide are felt, the less will be done about it.

FWIW.

Is Longview Assistant City Manager/State Senator Ann Rivers (R?-18) in increasingly hot water over questionable actions for Longview in the Legislature?

For the last 8 years or so, State Sen. Ann Rivers has become that which many people abhor: an all too typical politician.

For years now, We, The People, have been assaulted by politicians following the Steve Stuart school of politics.

Stuart, best known for both selling Clark County out to TriMet, Portland's Nazi-level Loot Rail authority by being the deciding vote to allow an unelected, out of state agency to exercise eminent domain... and for falsely accusing then county commissioners David Madore and Tom Mielke of violating state sunshine laws... got a cushy gig as city manager of Woodland, WA as payment for his betrayal of the people.

Famously, on the way out, he acknowledged that the only person he was representing and advocating for was, well, Steve Stuart himself.

            "And I've said it before: I don't speak for the people.. I will NEVER speak for "the people," I                     speak for Steve and some of you are going to agree with me and some of you aren't."

(Strangely reminiscent of now Longview Assistant City Manager Ann Rivers, who, having been primarily responsible for the death of the hated Columbia River Crossing scam, underwent some sort of epiphany, did a complete 180, and is now primarily responsible for resurrecting that hated zombie, only to find herself with an equally cushy gig as Assistant City Manager of Longview. But now? Now it appears there maybe 2.5 million reasons why that gig might not last.  Was Stuart's reward for his betrayal of Clark County coincidental to Rivers' reward for selling us out on the massive gas tax/tab fee increases she engineered as a Republican Senator in the then GOP-controlled Senate?

An initial effort to pay her off for the gas tax scam (Employment by a democrat campaign firm while she was "negotiating" with the teacher's union toadies on the rip-off AKA the McCleary budget that, besides wasting unnecessary billions on unearned teacher salary increases and subsequently being responsible in large part for our exploding property taxes, has accomplished nothing concerning academic outcomes in the state of Washington, where only half the kids out of the 1.1 million attending school are actually achieving grade-level competencies in English, 1/3rd in math and less than half in science for the billions we throw away every year, according to state-provided figures) blew up in her face when that employment was made public by the company's owner, Ron Dotzauer (democrat former Clark County Auditor) who up to this point had only been known for a sexual liaison with Maria Cantwell (yes THAT Maria Cantwell) shortly before (as in a few days before) his then impending marriage.

Now, like far too many who practice the art of shiny object politics, she got far too cute acting as Longview's apparent lobbyist in the Legislature. $2.5 million surprisingly got pushed out by the Capitol Budget Committee in the Senate, a small committee that Rivers happens to be one of the more senior members of, and surprise, surprise: Longview now wants to build yet another homeless destination resort, AKA Camp Alabama/Camp Hope.

Clearly, Rivers should have recused herself from any consideration of legislation concerning Longview. Failure to do so is an obvious conflict of interest.

Coincidence?

Nah. There's no coincidences in politics. And neither the Senator (Jeff Wilson) actually representing Longview nor either State Representative (Jim Walsh or Joel McIntire) seems to have known anything about it.

How is that possible?

Much like Rivers' sudden, unexplained promotion to Assistant City Manager from whatever the other made-up position built for her was called. 

            Rivers was hired in October 2021 as the city’s director of                         community development. The department manages many of the                     city’s housing and planning roles including building permits,                            inspections and the recently created Community Outreach division.

One wonders: Was their a job announcement for the assistant city manager gig? If there was, how long was it up? Did anyone else apply? Did Rivers double dip and get paid for both positions while she was in session?

Who knows?

Trump January 6 indictment isn't political... is it?

 

Face it.

Allegations that this is purely motivated by election politics are going to be hard to ignore.

To have avoided that claim, there's no reason they couldn't have waited until after the elections.

But then, Biden/DOJ/FBI/Alphabet agencies have been involved in what the street refers to as "sketchy shit."

Is there a leftist "shotgun justice" scam going on?

Hard to say, exactly. But the obvious fact concerning these efforts by obviously weaponized agencies cannot be overlooked.

I must admit, I was sure they wouldn't do this if for no other reason than this:

Discovery.

Now, Trump can put everyone involved on the stand under oath.

Pelosi. Schumer. Biden. Pelosi's staff, Schumer's staff. Pelosi's daughter. Ray Epps. The leadership of the House police. The scumbag who slaughtered Ashli Babbitt.

This is a disaster for the left and they don't even know it yet.

Nothing political about this, right?

Meanwhile, the more obvious irony is clear as a bell. These agencies are working a 100 times harder to get rid of Trump than they ever did to look into election irregularities.

My position since the beginning was this:

The left missed a huge opportunity to put all of this to bed... except, of course, they never WANTED to put it to bed.

They WANTED this outcome.

Because I've wondered since the beginning when it came to election irregularities, why didn't the left join in the call to investigate instead of doing everything they could to block these investigations, including filing suit?

Why wouldn't they WANT to investigate?

It COULDN'T be that they didn't want to risk upsetting the apple cart since they got the result they wanted.

Could it?

Imagine where we'd be right now if the leftists in charge had merely said, "Yup, there were some things that happened this time that didn't happen last time. Why is that? Who made that happen?"

But, oh, hell no.

Leftist election deniers abounded. The scumbag Congresswoman from Seattle's 7th District made a serious effort to stop the official recording of the electoral votes. It was so bad, even Biden slapped her around and effectively told her to sit down and STFU.

Meanwhile, the current White House Press Secretary, Karin Jean-Pierre was a vocal election denier:


And it doesn't look like SHE was cancelled.

But hey, it's different when leftists do it.

The reality, however, is that now, under discovery under oath, ALL of those involved are subject to examination by the defense. And that could get even worse than Hunters DOJ cover-up fiasco.

And all of those feds in the FBI who were involved and all of those police who opened up doors to the Capitol Building and so on.

This will get real ugly for the left. Real fast.