Wasn't clear, apparently. I meant that Russia would still have persevered even if the US hadn't sold them weapons on credit.

It wasn't Russia yet when either thing happened.

More relevant, Commerce is run by Howard Lutnik, who BBC just implicated heavily about getting Epstein services and lying to Congress. And who unilaterally decided Anthropic (run by Dario who is Democrat and therefore an Enemy of the State) could not release Fable for weeks until they bent the knee. And who approved OpenAI ChatGPT5.6 saying they did not even need government approval. Because Sam Altman already bend the knee.

in the free market businesses form and compete for consumer money with other businesses, it is the competition that is pro consumer. Unions, like any other political formation, exists to protect special interests, preventing businesses from competing to the best of their ability and pushing prices up - anti consumer.

Businesses are pro-consumer by definition, unless they are government subsidized. Being anti-union (as I am) is being as pro-consumer as possible. Unions push prices up, consumers want lower prices, unions are anti-consumer.

So you think that repeating Hitler's and Napoleon's mistake was a better idea? Damn. Sure, the Soviets got a shit-ton of weapons from the Allies, but all that did was move the defeat of Germany ahead a few years. Invading the largest country on Earth is never a good idea, especially when it consists of a population who has refused to submit to invaders EVER.

That horse left the barn years ago, our last presidential election pitted two candidates against each other who both swore to continue using US tax dollars to arm and fund a genocide.

There was a guy who did hard prison time and was put on the child predator list for life because he wrote a fictional story about it. Never underestimate the viciousness of puritans.

Get all these "lonely" people in a room together and force them to talk to each other for about an hour. Loneliness problem solved. If they fell for an AI chatbot, they can fall for each other faster.

They're desperately trying to keep the Chinese models out, but I doubt they'll be successful. Chinese AI is mostly outcome-based, they train a bot to wash dishes, a drone to recognize an insect infestation, or mining machinery to find and follow a vein, and equipment purchased from China is going to come with their AI baked in. Sure, they'll play with chatbots and AGI, but most of their work is devoted to actually accomplishing something besides stock manipulation. Once Chinese AI is seeded throughout the economy in machinery and devices more advanced systems are going to follow.

A lot of Asimov's subsequent stories were about end runs around the Three Laws, enabling robots to do things they shouldn't.

That's the normal outcome of a legal system run by and for lawyers. I was once added (without my permission) to a class action suit against Seagate. We "won" a coupon for $15 off our next Seagate drive of 500 mb or less (a month after Seagate had stopped producing 500mb drives). The lawyers made $5,000,000.

Why bring up examples in 50s? - to show how far back it goes. Notice how under each country I tried to bring up something very old (50s), and something recent (aka War in Ukraine, Iran Bombing, China Tiktok/Huawei.

Examples of state-sponsored and election misinformation - yes, have you heard of Navalny and crew? Who were they financed by (without even the slightest attempt to hide it)? Did you know their whole purpose was to attempt to cause riots and mass protests against Russian government? What about all the BS in US politics about Russian Influence? The non- existent, factually disproven in US courts, yes that influence.

No, Putin is looking after his people. You push Russia (various things like attacking contested regions - ala Georgia/Ukraine, NATO expansion, color revolutions etc..) , guess who's in Rusisa is in charge of pushing back? Or I'm sorry, did you expect him to just sit back and say "stuff happens" idly twiddling his thumbs and that's it? No country, in the entire recorded history of humanity, has EVER benefited from their own civil war. Civil war, leadership overthrown, things get worse for literally everyone in that country. That's just how it works. Anyone wishing to overthrow your government, no matter how bad it might be to you, is not wishing you well. If you were so much against your own government, you would have found a way to be elsewhere ages ago. Someone pushing you towards violence, AND THEN expecting you to deal with the mess of the aftermath, is wishing horrible things upon you. Even if they hand out cookies (*wink at Nuland).

Ticket scalpers are overcharging for tickets? Say it isn't so! Inconceivable! /s

Sir, are you mad?

US is attempting to manipulate Chinese/Russian/Iranian politics/government/companies and everything else going on in those countries, about 100 times more than the other side. Has done this for decades.

For Russia everything from Star Wars program, to collapse of Soviet Union, to backing Yeltsin after, to demonizing Putin and supporting various opposition movements, US AID, literally instigating Ukrainian revolution which lead to war with Russia, to even now having 20+ packets of sanctions. How is that not CLEAR data points of manipulating at SCALE that pales in comparison to anything Russians are even rumored to do.

US has always been manipulating things in China, from backing Tibetan resistance against Beijing in 50s and supporting paramilitary guerillas, to information warfare Voice of America and other BS, to most recent examples of sanctioning Huawei, "we don't like it, so we'll tariff stuff from your side", or "you must sell us tiktok because it's popular and we want it".

Look up CIA Operation Ajax for Iran as a good example from 50s, supporting color revolutions like within the last year to overthrow Iranian government for more recent stuff, if that's not enough how about physically launching missiles and drones at them? None of that is influence at scale huh?