T___A

The Handmaid's tale is the the God's not dead of feminist of literature.

Supremacy of glorious T-72 over filthy Kharkovite tractor
 

How to deal with Animea Soviet style:
"Death to samurais!"

 

@Collimatrix
@T___A

Our hosting costs would go down, but we would also loose our funding from Putin.

Kirov document from 1950 on IS-7 armor. Interestingly it contradicts the typical armor angle given on the front plate. It is usually stated to be at 65 degrees but this says 58 degrees:

E-100 hull:
 

E-100 hull:
 

Fuckin thing couldn't even get a positive K:D ratio against a slight incline.

Please tell me you just found this on Facebook or something and that you don't know who Bill Browder actually is.  Because that would be way more forgivable than actually supporting the man.

The article describes him as a "British-American investor and rights activist," which is a hell of a way to describe someone that slimy.
 
Here's the deal; everyone that the official US government actually likes who deals with Russia in any official or quasi-official capacity is scum.  You can take that to the bank.  While Russian organized crime was probably more than capable of looting post-Soviet Russia without any help, they had lots of help.  This article gives a good summary.  The rape and pillage of Russia in the 1990s wasn't just overseen by men in Adidas tracksuits.  There were a fair number of well-connected Harvard men.  And I do mean well-connected.  The Larry Summers mentioned in that article?  Yeah, it's that Larry Summers.
 
Once these assholes were done helping gangsters strip-mine Russia of anything valuable, they peddled their "expertise" on Russia to a credulous audience in the US government so they could gain juicy sinecures in various Russia-related posts.  And so it came to pass that Michael McFaul, who can't fucking speak Russian, became the US ambassador to Russia.  With predictably disastrous results.

So, who is William Browder, this man that Putin wants offed?  Well, it might surprise you know that fourteen years ago he was firmly on Team Putin.  You see, he used to be a Putin stooge, and then he probably stole a fuckload of money, and now he's become a successful lobbyist and tax-non-payer who has managed to rebrand himself as a human rights advocate.  Does Putin want him dead?  Yeah, and the fact that he used to be a Putin cheerleader, won't testify in court about his finances, and probably lied about the basis for the law that he successfully lobbied for is enough to give you a rough idea of how that came to be.  Don't steal from the boss!  Don't even steal from the capo!

Forwarding "We will fight until the last American" as the new NATO motto.

Yesssss
 
https://babylonbee.com/news/senator-ben-sasse-offered-one-last-chance-to-bow-to-towering-trump-statue-before-being-thrown-into-fiery-furnace/

Yes!  What's so hard to believe about this?  Ever since 1883 the President can only fire the Secretary of State, the rest of the employees of that department are practically untouchable to him.  In fact, it's very difficult for government employees to be fired even by their own departments.  The end result of that is State employees are free to ignore the President.  The only thing keeping this from being obvious is a certain desire to present a veneer of professional normalcy.  The President and the State Department will attempt to make it look like they agree and that they're part of a team even when that isn't true.  Usually this involves the newly-elected President conceding most of their campaign promises.  Remember how G.W. Bush promised a "more humble" foreign policy?  Remember how Obama was going to close Guantanamo Bay?
 
Trump is different because he is willing to feud with the State Department.  And he does.  This is particularly well-documented.

Trump has been trying to get control over the State Department ever since he had Tillerson in charge.  Note the panic and over-reaction.  It's a bloodbath!  Oh the humanity!  Wait, how many employees did Tillerson actually fire?
 
 
...

More recently, State Department officials got caught planning to host an event that would have undermined Trump's Cuba policy.  The result?  The event was "postponed."
 
These sorts of reprisals by Trump and his goons seem utterly inconsequential to State, which employs something like 70K people.  And, in an absolute sense, they are.  But what makes Trump different is that he is willing to push back at all.  This is not business as usual.

What?  No, that's a ridiculous oversimplification.  Real power structures are filled with ambiguity, intrigue, and realities that don't line up with paper org structures.

So, sure, on paper the President is in charge of the Executive Branch and therefore everyone in the US Department of State should click their heels and do exactly what he says all the time because that's what the org chart says.  

Meanwhile, in the real world, it hasn't worked that way since 1883.  Or maybe even 1867.

Ask yourself this; if the President has absolute power over all Executive departments, then why hasn't Trump fired absolutely everyone and replaced them all with his toadies?  The US government did work that way at one point.  It was a terrible way for the government to work because every election cycle that a new party took power, every government employee was replaced with some toady of the new president.  So the Republican Party changed it in 1883 to make the vast majority of Executive departmental workers untouchable by politicians with the conspicuous exception of the cabinet-level heads of the departments, who are a vestigial remnant of the old spoils system.

I wish I could shitpost as well as Trump does:
 
 

I like the implication that Trump's presidency will be the best.

Oh good, I always wanted a valid excuse to burn SF and LA to the ground.

https://babylonbee.com/news/as-justice-kennedy-retires-nation-takes-moment-to-thank-god-hillary-clinton-not-president/

Oldie but goodie




 

I believe the top is the air filtration system the bottom is the engine cooling system.

279 roadwheel

279 roadwheel