Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Yeah, some members of the defence forces here have sung “up the ra”. Seeing that the defence forces is made up from people from all walks of life, it is not surprising if some members sing a particular song.

However, when a country is illegally invaded and it’s population (including children) are raped, murdered, and kidnapped, it does tend to generate more nationalism within the country they is suffering.

Since it was raised as an issue.

Whenever I come across a post regurgitating some tired old Kremlin talking point and there are 2 or 3 likes assigned to it, I'll often hover my cursor over the Thanks button, out of sheer curiosity, to see who thanked that nonsense. It's usually the same posters - someone who's prominent in this thread and a few people who've already been thread-banned for trolling but are still clearly reading the thread (or are multi-accounting).

How many Poles and Jews did Stalin's regime murder. Yet the Russians are lauding him now....stop chucking stones in your glasshouse. Another added to the ignore list.

They posted two tweets from the same twitter account on this page alone. I had a quick scan of that twitter account. It's basically that flavour of Russian propaganda where it doesn't actually talk about Russia itself - just wall to wall condemnation of Ukraine and the West. Basically similar to the "International News" section of state media in Russia/China/Iran. it's the kind of English language content that is squarely targeted at Western tankies and leftists.

So that poster, who was trying to argue, only yesterday, that since Russia Today is no longer being aired that people in the West aren't exposed to Russian propaganda is main-lining high-strength doses of the stuff themselves via social media. I am shocked - shocked I tells you.

EU countries agree on new sanctions against Iran for supplying drones to Russia

The combination of the Ukrainian media blackout and the Russian clampdown on their own bloggers really has created a dense fog of war. There hasn't been anything like it during this war. Usually Twitter will have content but the only things I have seen are some videos of Russians taking ferries across the Dnipro to flee Kherson city. Absolutely nothing from the Ukrainian side.

Ukrainians are being slaughtered, a nuclear armed dictator is invading a European country, but this is what you are "concerned" about...

This really isn't the thread for this so this is the last I'll say on the matter. Previously I thought you were on about Republican Primaries. I didn't realise you meant the general election.

The reason why an "Independent Conservative" shouldn't run in the general election is simple - They'd likely take more votes from Joe Biden then they would from Donald Trump. Joe Biden made it through the democratic primaries in 2020 mostly because he was seen as the candidate who would attract independents and "never-Trumper" Republicans. Not many Democrats were super excited about Joe Biden but their fear of Trump winning another term exceeded their willingness to take a risk on one of the other candidates.

This paid off when Biden won the 2020 election. What was very telling though was that the Democrats didn't fare as well down ballot. They didn't do as well in Senate, House or State elections. The reason for that is that a lot of moderate Republicans and independents voted for Biden at the top of the ticket and then voted Republican in all of the other races.

Howard Schultz, the Starbucks billionaire founder, made some noises about running third party in the 2020 election. He received massive backlash from people fearing that it would only help Trump. In the end he pulled out, partly because the Democrats has nominated a more "centrist" candidate in Joe Biden.

Shouldn't you be excusing the hi-jacking of Irish airliners?