As much as I loathe the guy, I think we all dodged a bullet.

If he died of natural causes last month I don't think the MAGAts would have rallied behind Desantis, or whomever got the nomination. I'm not saying they wouldn't have voted for them, just that the excitement wouldn't be there.

If this has succeeded, the supporters would have transferred and been even more pumped up. And sympathy from those weird fuck undecideds could make the difference, not just in the presidency, but both chambers of Congress, and for their policy goals too.

Riding the wake of an assassination the draconian shit they would push through could have been far worse than anything Trump would have been able to accomplish in a second term.

Take civil rights legislation in the 60s; a lot of what LBJ accomplished was credited to the national feeling after the Kennedy assassination. Would JFK have been able to accomplish all that if he had served eight years with public sentiment toward civil rights being divided?

It sucks that this is boosting his chances in November. But a martyr, a new figurehead, and a more energized base could have been far worse.

There were normal diplomatic disagreements that all allies have. And consider the source of that statement. Yeltsin's critics would have included any anti-democratic groups. This was a period of unprecedented cooperation and trust that was growing until Russia turned its back.

Before Russia did their heel turn in the aughts, they almost joined NATO after a period of significant cooperation. Russia seeing the U.S., or it's allies, as enemies is a symptom of Putin turning a fledgling democracy into a dictatorship, not the natural state of affairs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations

Go to the "Development of post-Cold War cooperation (1990–2004)" section and check out "NATO-Russia Founding Act", "NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council", and "NATO-Russia Council".

Back then the talk was pearl clutching over NATO with Russia being seen as some racist white alliance against China, MENA, India, and others in the global south.

Russia only sees us as enemies because Putin needed to create enemies to seize and consolidate power.

I apologize in advance for sounding like a dick here, reducing people to dollars and cents. But that's how the people we're discussing see us.

It's not the ones who don't have 5k and/or marketable skills that would harm the economy by leaving. If you've got something to offer and a company to sponsor you immigration is relatively easy. I've spent part of my career working in other countries, and I've known many others that have as well. What we have in common is we're all educated professionals with lots of disposable income. We would harm the economy if we left in larger numbers and stayed away en masse. Although some stay, for the most part we come home. It's nice to go home. If it's not nice to come home, we'll take our education and skills and stay somewhere that is nice. That's why it's called a brain drain and not a ditchdigger drain.

And then there are refugees. Countries don't take refugees because they want them. They do it because it would be inhumane to not at least have a process, even if many countries make the process as onerous as they can.

Not bad actually, just a couple hundred, less than a speeding ticket in California. The problem was paying it. I have a very small credit union with no branch near me so I had to find a CU in a network with mine that I could use for the type of international electronic payment required. No insurance reporting or traffic school to keep points off my licence so it was just a pain in the ass.

I honestly don't even think the people who came up with this are thinking about that. Like nifty said, these policies will create a brain drain that will be bad for the U.S. economy, including the assets of the rich.

This is just some christofacist shit. I don't think they gave a thought to anything else.

Yeah that's some bullshit. I got tagged by a speed camera in the Netherlands, two months later I got the citation in California. They sent it to the registered owner, sixt, they forwarded it to me.

Nominal is more than inflation so real is above 0.

Real just has to be above 0 for inflation adjusted wages to be going up.

I still call bullshit though without knowing where the increases are. All the increases could be in the top 10% with everyone else going down and only the average is above 0.

Edit: I was wrong, the growth is actually weighted toward the lower end.

I'm just one person and my sample size is small. But judging by the number of right-leaning people I know that send me stuff from RT and other similar places, and the number of left leaning people who repeat dispiriting talking points I see in those pieces (They may never vote republican, but their enthusiasm is certainly being sapped.), I would say the percentage is quite high. That's just people being swayed like you asked, not necessarily convinced to vote or act a certain way.

Again, I'm just one person, but from what I see around me Russia and its allies are winning the propaganda war.

I want to know what this is, but I'm not sure how to Google it. Can you give me a couple keywords to include with the name?

Yeah, this is fucking bullshit, but it's not like Cliff's notes haven't been a thing for a long time. This is just another way for someone being forced to read something to slack off. No one who actually wants to read the book would ever consider this.

Just make sure you finish on the Bach. Never finish on Debussy.