The double tap strike is deliberately employed to murder medical staff and to punish the enemy for showing compasion.

It is paired with the Hannibal Directive, as a proscription to ally and adversary alike to offer no quarter nor to expect it be given.

It is the policy of genocide, imposed by a leadership that can only see victory in terms of annihilation.

You mean high speed rail and electric cars?

I’m not a mathematician, but it appears to my untrained eye that 2/3 of Americans want Universal Healthcare

What does that look like in implementation?

Medicare For All is generally unpopular among senior citizens. Medicare buy in is more appealing, but does little to curb price gouging in provision of care. State ownership/management of care facilities is easily subjected to scandals that cost political advocate their jobs (the VA being a classic modern example).

So what’s the plan?

Combining French snobbery with Linux snobbery could set off some kind of chain reaction.

How soon until Quebec joins the Bloc de L’nux?

I only take issue with calling them anything other than something like crony capitalism

The fundamental difference between Chinese Socialism and American Capitalism can be summed up in their retirement rates.

In China, white collar men can retire at 63. Blue collar women are out at 55. That upwards of twelve years gap in retirement age is why China has billionaires and America has trillionaires.

If I died right now and was told I was going to be reincarnated but unfortunately I would be born poor and was given a choice of where to go, China would be near the bottom of my list of developed nations.

The real value of a civilization is its infrastructure. And you’re going to find it difficult to name a country more advanced and resilient - particularly to looming climate change.

But if you want to roll the dice on Starmer’s UK or Takaichi’s Japan or Milei’s Argentina? Good luck.

Slovenia - a Yugoslav state - was a major trading partner of the USSR. It’s economy was hollowed out, first after the decline of Russia, and then after a decade of looting, sanctions, and war.

That’s what my government tells me

It’s like when China every few years trots out some rich person or powerful politician and nails them for tax evasion or corruption in a show trial then goes back to pretending to be socialist

I think Chinese domestic economic planning goes a few steps beyond the semi-annual show trial.

Their green energy and ev markets illustrate as much

How does a Slovenian model meet an American billionaire?

Through modeling agent Paolo Zampolli. This is well-documented.

Very likely the story of Ghislaine Maxwell, given her father’s shady history.

Epstein was far from the only flesh peddler exploiting the wave of post-Soviet refugees following western Shock Therapy in Eastern Europe. Paolo Zampolli founded the modeling agency in NYC that imported Melania and eventually introduced her to Heir Donald. He did partner with Epstein in 2004 to purchase Elite Model Management. But it could have just as easily been a thousand other creep-o finance tycoons running around NY, Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo from the 90s/00s.

The whole fucking joke of Epstein and The Files is that he gets treated as a unicorn when we’ve had Jack Abramoffs and Lawrence E. King Jrs and Deborah Jeane Palfreys and Andrew Tates for just as long.

No no no. China is Fake News. They don’t even make cars. If they made cars, I would have seen Chinese cars driving around in America.

“China Battery!” typically trips everyone’s “Fake News! Evil Company! Communists Killed 100 Billion People!” alarm

The way to safer is to reduce the amount of cars.

Hersey! Blasphemy! Unamerican!

Ah, so they’ve already exploded, thus rendering them safe for use.

Are they cruel so we are afraid of them or are they cruel so that we hate them?

The lowest ranking goons in these organizations are effectively paid in a dispensation to be sadistic. ICE, as an organization, exists to organize and monetize an otherwise ambient public hatred of the Out Group (people of color, migrants, outspoken liberals and leftists, etc).

Sure, you’re intended to be afraid of them. But, more importantly, you’re intended to be someone for them to exercise their own anxiety and frustration on. And the high from the abuse they inflict is what keeps them coming back to a thankless, miserable job. It’s what keeps them loyal.

Cruelty is the point.

Firing NATO’s biggest arms dealer is a bit like trying to kick the NFL out of football.

At some point, someone has to be out there willing to fuck with the machinery of the election. The problem Orbán has is his shrinking pool of people willing to do that. He’s running against his own PM, ffs. It’s not like we’re seeing a sea change in Hungarian politics. It’s just local plutocrats deciding they’ve had enough of Orbán’s ego and are trading him out for someone more pliable.

Same thing happened to Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine. He fucked around way too hard and galvanized the whole country against him.