Really convincing argument regarding the "peace" question.

I was watching the movie "Leave the World Behind" on Netflix the other day and the ending made me think of Putin, who has also waged war against the U.S. (Trump does not happen without his assistance, nor does his current popularity happen without it).

It was a rather haunting ending, with a brief speech by Mahershala Ali, that perfectly described a 3 point process for bringing down a democracy like the U.S. I don't know if that was the filmmakers' intent, but I don't know how to be, because it immediately brought to mind Putin's cyber attacks through his St. Petersburg cyber warriors (some now openly working for him in the U.S.).

This kind of talk gets most people not paying attention to roll their eyes.

We've probably been at war with Putin for a decade now. My rationale over a "truce," though, isn't appeasement. It's about a pause. I simply don't think Ukraine can outlast the Russians. This is how Russia wins its wars: It sacrifices as many of its young men as is required (often, these young men come from the non-Russian hinterlands), until the job is done. The U.S. has got to find a way to hit them where it hurts. So far, it hasn't.

Over the last couple years I worked closely with Ukrainians in a software development role. We met almost daily over Zoom. And I can confirm that they will not give up their homes. Sometimes, early in the war, during a status check, so and so would be missing from the call and one their Ukrainian colleagues would say "so so couldn't make it today because he's making molotov cocktails."

Personally, I'd love to see the Ukrainians destroy Russian pipelines.

I agree about Biden. He's more clever than he is given credit for. The one thing that can't be done is allowing Republicans to cut off aid. If Biden has to find a way to choke a few red states economically to do that, I'm all for it.