In any other presidential term, that can be a fair assessment only a few months in. The economy can be compared to a Panamax oil tanker - it moves with huge momentum and can’t be steered quickly.

But this tariffs nonsense detonated a bomb below the waterline. You may not be able to steer the ship quickly, but deliberate sabotage can absolutely cripple it and spread damage everywhere. Quarterly 401(k) statements are being sent out, plus it’s tax season, so people are very in touch with how this is impacting them and their money

I have heard multiple firearms trainers give statements to the effect of

If your open hand skill [unarmed fighting] sucks, you will rush to the firearm instead of other options because you don’t have faith in yourself. And when the first bullet doesn’t do the magic of an ‘instant stop’ like people pretend, you’ll end up mag dumping.

And if you watch police body-cam footage, you can see their panic switch pull the trigger, and then the cadence of gunfire rapidly picks up after that first shot.

Go look at any police force in Europe where the ‘suspect with a knife’ gets vastly different treatment.

• Police gang up and tackle them
• Nets/bolas style deployable restraints
• Low speed vehicle ramming to get the suspect on the floor and dazed
• Beanbag/less lethal shots to the body for pain compliance/muscle shock so they drop the knife

Euro cops almost always have a pistol, but the mentality is completely different regarding shoot v no-shoot

Marco Rubio suicide watch has been sooo cathartic during this administration. The Zelenskyy blowup especially - after decades of waiting and maneuvering, deal brokering and sycophancy, he finally has the job where he can ‘outshine’ Kissinger… and the wave he’s riding is with these idiotic blowhards.

Commit to renewables. I’d advocate for a nuclear powered off-ramp from fossils whilst renewable capacity and infrastructure is built, but I get that each nation has its own history with fission.

Energy security is fundamental for a robust society and economy - otherwise you’re subject to pipeline shutoffs/attacks, oil embargoes/quotas, or another angle for outside nations to influence or control you. For example, if you’re chill with the French and build your economic strategy around buying their surplus energy, that strategy predicated on the French having a surplus to sell you.

If you’re a (western) European leader returning to Russian energy is at best shortsighted amnesia, at worst blatant malfeasance. There’s several reasons to not go back to Russia:

• Official legal based sanctions on Russian energy
• Ukrainian drone based ‘sanctions’ on Russian energy
• Russia’s track record of energy blackmail/hybrid warfare
• LNG and oil production available in your EEZ/the EU, albeit at higher cost than imported
• Domestic solar, hydro, and wind manufacturing/generation is ramping up
• French nuclear energy exports
• Domestic politics ie. voters turning against Russian imperial aggression/expansionism

Eastern Europe has a slightly different incentive mix, but there’s still a lot of reasons to not

Absolutely. My best learning experiences in life - both collaborative like mentoring/educational setting, or competitive like sports - have been when I was massively outclassed. Because if you put aside your lizard-brain feelings of being less than or inferior and listen/observe, you can see how it’s working for them and understand what it is you are/aren’t doing or do/don’t know.

Observe. Ask. Understand. Decide… and Review.

But humility is understated. It doesn’t sell on TV, it doesn’t captivate a crowd or rally the masses. “I don’t have the answer, but let’s find out” is honest but doesn’t have the same pull as “the problem is clear, and I know the solution”

And all he had to do was shut up, and take credit for the federal apparatchik doing all the work for him with COVID. Blather at a press conference to his followers to stay home and ‘beat the China virus so America stays strong’ - and then play golf. Push on industry and suppliers to build ventilators, hospital capacity, and facilitate lockdowns and remote school/work.

Imagine if instead of nearly a million direct deaths, we had a mortality similar to Europe - better even as we bought our way to the front of the vaccine line. An actual ‘America first’ in recovery from COVID and the economic slowdown, instead of fumbling the ball so hard in his fourth year and making Biden president.

How anyone thought that he would be the right choice to manage any crisis, let alone economic woes is dumbfounding. The ‘smartest person’ in every room he enters, he’s incapable of anyone else to having the right answer.

Devils advocate, but given the way they’ve been building metal sheds around the prior tanks and almost completely negating the main gun, a missing turret might just be a weatherproofing issue for the Orks Russians.

It’s not like a main gun helps you survive a mobility kill from the umpteenth TM-62 in the dirt that got replanted after the last assault failed.

Because for the right, the concept of people coming together as a grassroots movement and setting aside some political differences to unite as a group, was unheard of until Tea Party/MAGA.

It’s an implicit admission - how else could ‘those radical lefties/gays/immigrants/etc’ get these crowd sizes except by astroturfing like the right has to?

Let the ‘hog die the graceful end it deserves - in the hearts and memories of ground pounders. The Frogfoots are getting wrecked in Ukraine when they try to do CAS, that mission is over unless you’re splattering goat herders, and even militants have MANPADs now.

Super Tucano is all you need for low intensity/asymmetrical conflict and COIN, otherwise busting tanks is better done by ATGMs and AT mines.