It’s like driving on a bus with a terrorist who insists “you have to do what I want!! Or I’ll blow up the bus!”, but they’re on the bus with their whole family who might not want to do that. Putin himself might be wacked out enough that he decides to. However, it’s been obvious for decades that the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction is accurate, and most nuclear countries seek to maintain that as a deterrent. I don’t think the rest of the power structure in Russia would allow that to happen since it’s obvious suicide. Even if they weren’t instantly nuked by the US, France and UK, it would fuck up so many things in the world, including for Russia, that nobody would win that. I don’t think Putin wants to destroy all of civilization… he just wants Russia to regain power and be on par with the US, EU and China.

People often give that Reagan example but it doesn’t even remotely prove that Biden could stop it, in a different situation 40 years later.

Where do you get “people might say mean things”? One of those reductions where someone acts like Trump being derogatory, inflammatory, thin skinned, insulting and lying is just silly little ‘mean things’? Obviously I mean that Trumps’ actions would be the same or worse, not ‘saying mean things’, though that is also significant. His inflammatory rhetoric and inconsistency does affect international relations.

Anyway, it’s hard to find a national politician in the US who doesn’t side with Israel. I agree it would be nice if Biden took a more neutral stance, but Congress are the ones who appropriate money for Israel, not the President.

It’s such a crappy situation that there’s no way he could win. Anything other than siding with Israel would lead to claims of anti-semitism and criticism from the very powerful Isreal lobby, not to mention Republicans. A more nuanced position would be better, sure, but I don’t know how politically feasible it is in the US. We can definitely criticize Biden but “Genocide Joe” always strikes as stupid especially since it’s bashing Biden at a time when making him less popular would give us Genocide Donald, who would clearly be so much worse.

It would be pretty difficult to do that considering the US government has been giving Israel billions a year in aid a long time before Joe Biden was President, and the vast majority of other US politicians support Israel as well. But sure, blame it on Biden I guess, maybe we can elect Trump, who will probably be asking his staff “why can’t we just kill all the Palestinians with the nuclear?”

As far as I can figure out, maybe a Siberian. Maine Coons are usually pretty big and this was just a cute little cat. He/she/cat followed me around the store for a while and it was pretty much the best experience I’ve ever had grocery shopping.

I recommend the Sweet Cow brand.

That’s basically why Putin has been whining about this. He wants to be able to invade neighboring countries without having to deal with the US, EU and NATO.

The same is true under US law and international law in general - if someone shows up at border point and requests asylum, saying they’re in danger, have been forcibly displaced or are fleeing persecution, the country must admit them. It’s not assured, though, as someone can be turned down for a US criminal record or other background check flags. You also have to apply and go through a court process to be officially granted residency. And then, having shown up and being under official control at a border, starting under Obama many refugees have been placed into detention camps or even made to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed, which can take quite some time - the US has a court backlog of about 850,000 cases. So, many people consider it easier to just dodge the authorities and come in unofficially.

Sure.

“Migrant border crossings in fiscal year 2022 topped 2.76 million, breaking previous record”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migrant-border-crossings-fiscal-year-2022-topped-276-million-breaking-rcna53517

That’s just the people they stopped. It could also be some people being stopped multiple times.

“Fact Check: Were There 600,000 Southern U.S. Border ‘Got-Aways’ in 2022?” https://www.newsweek.com/southern-us-border-migrants-gotaways-2022-1770201

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) tweeted on December 27: “[…] Border Patrol counts more than 600,000 got-aways this year alone.”

Official data for “got-aways” in the 2022 fiscal year is yet to be released by the Department for Homeland Security (DHS), but Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed to Newsweek the accuracy of the figure in Kennedy’s tweet. “Got aways are defined as subjects at the Southwest Border who, after making an unlawful entry, are not turned back or apprehended, and are no longer being actively pursued by USBP agents,” states the DHS Border Security Metrics Report: 2021.

So that’s people they tried to stop and gave up.

Note this doesn’t mean that the total number increases each year, as some people go back and don’t return, and others go back and forth.

I get that the US has 60 times the population of Finland. That’s actually a very large border for the size of the country - the US Southern border is about 1900 miles. The Border Control agency stopped 2.75 million illegal crossings a year, and who knows how many people made it.

The cold and migrants thing is reminiscent of the bullshit that the states of Texas and Florida have been pulling lately… illegally busing migrants by surprise to other states. Just last month Texas sent a busload to Denver and that’s been going on a while. DeSantis might have stopped by now, not sure. Denver is pretty cold in the winter as well, and there are thousands of people from Venezuela living there in tents now. It’s a callous game with people’s lives totally in line with the personalities of Tex. Gov Abbott and DeSantis of Florida.

He tells them what to say where it concerns Russia, but they naturally have the same sort of lying, victim blaming, playing a victim and opposite-world tendencies.

It’s theoretically closed to illegal immigrants, sure. Of course in practice that’s very difficult to do given the terrain, length and remote nature of much of the southern border.

I have read about how this is believed to be an intentional destabilization attempt by Russia, which of course they’d do. Also given the governments fascist nature, I’m sure they don’t really want immigrants.

Seems like it would happen naturally after a while. He speaks basically exactly like US Republicans and I think a lot of them actually believe their insane BS.

Sure, but I’m talking about people who come up from Central America with no visa at all.

I found it kind of wild the extent of undocumented immigration we have in the US (hundreds of thousands a year), and an article I read the other day said Finland was experiencing ‘dozens’ of immigrants coming over. Or this about 2 people.

Having to constantly communicate in abusive opposite-world ideas must be tiring. The notion that NATO is out to invade Russia or something is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard.

Why would that even be a problem? Plenty of blind people in ancient stories, myths and legends. Probably better off without this person.