Russian military aircraft detected off Alaska

@Northwest
That's right. We do that routinely hundreds of times a year. And it cost money. For what? The Russians are not flying over US airspace. Would you intercept your neighbor walking by your house on a public sidewalk? What's wrong with you?

@sree251
I'm not a Putin shill. But you are.

@Prison1203 Seriously? You chose to be a man? So you could have chosen to be a woman? "Choice" means you could go either way.

@sree251 Trump's method of making deals works well in an environment where he can threaten to walk away from the table, so the other person has to cave in if they're not willing to walk away. And it's not an issue if he will never see the person again. But that doesn't work with foreign policy in an interconnected world with different degrees of alliances. Take China, for example. They're both our close trading partner while also a rival for spheres of influence. But this level of nuance is beyond Trump.

Another problem is tariffs. Trump has this inexplicable obsession with them, possibly because he doesn't like income tax and sees tariffs as an alternative. But he has two conflicting goals. If he wants to raise revenue, then tariffs on foreign goods will accomplish that. But if he wants to bring manufacturing back to the US, and tariffs encourage that, then there's no revenue if the goods are made here. These two goals are contradictory - you can't have both. Again, even this level of elementary thinking is beyond him.

Aside from the fact that I agreed with more of her policy positions, at least Harris understands foreign relations and basic economics, and would have been a far better president. And she wouldn't have appointed a bunch of incompetent sycophants to her cabinet like Trump did.

@LeopoldBloom woulda coulda shoulda . Moot point in 2025.

@FreddieUK Russia has had a hard on for the Arctic for years and they are flexing

@AthrillatheHunt You're so right. It's a place most people don't think about, but the USA, Russia and China have all got their eyes fixed on the mineral wealth in that area. Hence the Greenland nonsense that Trump came out with a few years ago and every now and again digs up when he needs another distraction.

@FreddieUK they wanna do in the Arctic what China is doing in s China sea . Change their maritime borders .

@sree251 I'm not a sovereign country, so I can't print money or set interest rates.

You know, for a seemingly intelligent person, you're economically illiterate. But this is the way the news sources you follow present this, as if the US is a household and has a similar cash flow.

When has the government destroyed our currency? Have you seen the stock market recently? And if you're upset about fiscal policy, which party controls Congress and the White House? I hope voting for Twitler was worth it just to protest against "woke," whatever that is.

@LeopoldBloom
Your are not a sovereign country? What do you think it is financially? Is its balance sheet any different from yours as an individual?

@sree251 It's very different, because a sovereign country can print money and set its interest rate. It can also control income through tax policy.

@Roundandroundwego It goes back to the Civil War, when a Union freighter captained by Peter Pinguid went around Cape Horn with the goal of opening a new front in California. It got lost in a fog and approached a Russian vessel that was exploring the possibility of extending the Russian presence in North America south of Fort Ross in Sonoma County. Unable to make each other out, the two vessels exchanged fire before going their separate ways. This was the first military encounter between the US and Russia. I read about this in Thomas Pynchon's book The Crying of Lot 49. The book went on to describe the "Peter Pinguid Society" which was so right wing, it opposed capitalism because it could lead to communism.

@LeopoldBloom uncle Tom's cabin was countered by pro slavery critics who gave the first American critical review of capitalism, claiming it's wrong to use it on white people. But that's not the source of communism in America. Just a coincidence. History works if you read a lot.

@Roundandroundwego You're like the flat earth guy who is on here occasionally. You've read a lot, but either the wrong books or the right ones with the wrong attitude.

Antebellum slavery was supported by the southern ruling class, as it kept wages low for people who weren't enslaved. Because the country was a lot more sectional at that time, factory workers in the Northeast weren't competing with enslaved cotton field laborers in the South. However, while the Confederacy by its own statements seceded to protect slavery and for no other reason, the opposition to secession in the North wasn't to end slavery, but to keep the union together. If Andrew Johnson had been president instead of Lincoln, he would have allowed the Confederacy to secede. You probably would have preferred that as the US wouldn't have been a world power in that case with two hostile nations occupying North America, more interested in fighting with each other than having much involvement with the rest of the world. Of course, you probably think the wrong side won World War Two.