urbanSTL

quincunx wrote: ↑

9:43 PM - Mar 21

They are so afraid of Tim Walz.

I think they kinda were until Dems muzzled Walz in favor of Liz Cheney

They’re still a bunch of neo-liberal war hawks

Markets appear to be waking up to the reality that this crisis in the Middle East is not something Trump can unilaterally TACO his way out of.

All of the major indexes are either in correction or teetering on correction.

Crude oil futures are back up to the prices we saw last week.

US Bond yields are spiking especially the longer-term bonds.

Crude oil
Diesel
LNG
Helium
Fertilizer

No LNG to produce things, no fertilizer to plant things, no diesel to transport things. So food, transportation, microchips, computers, phones, medications…all disrupted. And it may be many years before these are back online even if the war ended today.

We have zero power to militarily open the strait and all political options would require major concessions on our end. Aaaannnnddddd No amount of proclaiming victory will manifest one. Feel free to call me out if I’m wrong but this sh*t is just starting and the amounts route are starting to run out with no more supplies en route. A gallon of gas in Australia is up to $10 per. We very well could be looking a mass starvation, civil unrest, and global recession.

For example, The growing season starts soon in southern Europe and 2 weeks later Northern Europe. There are shortages of fertilizer, 20% of the cost of crops, and shortages of diesel to deliver and run that farming equipment. And some of Europe’s most fertile lands are already not producing due to our proxy war in Ukraine Trump refuses to end.

But hey at least we got gifted 10 make believe oil tankers from Iran. /s

The Other Global Crisis Stemming From the Strait of Hormuz’s Blockage
Even if the Iran war stops, restarting production and transport for fertilizers and their components could take weeks—at a crucial moment for planting.

https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2026/03/fertilizer-iran-hormuz-food-crisis

moorlander wrote: ↑

4:33 PM - Mar 27

Crude oil
Diesel
LNG
Helium
Fertilizer

No LNG to produce things, no fertilizer to plant things, no diesel to transport things. So food, transportation, microchips, computers, phones, medications…all disrupted. And it may be many years before these are back online even if the war ended today.

We have zero power to militarily open the strait and all political options would require major concessions on our end. Aaaannnnddddd No amount of proclaiming victory will manifest one. Feel free to call me out if I’m wrong but this sh*t is just starting and the amounts route are starting to run out with no more supplies en route. A gallon of gas in Australia is up to $10 per. We very well could be looking a mass starvation, civil unrest, and global recession.

For example, The growing season starts soon in southern Europe and 2 weeks later Northern Europe. There are shortages of fertilizer, 20% of the cost of crops, and shortages of diesel to deliver and run that farming equipment. And some of Europe’s most fertile lands are already not producing due to our proxy war in Ukraine Trump refuses to end.

But hey at least we got gifted 10 make believe oil tankers from Iran. /s

You lost me at proxy war in Ukraine Trump refuses to end. We talking about the war Russia started and is losing to Ukraine? Trump has no ability to end the war Ukraine.

and even if the strait was open yesterday:  the global oil industry will have no hope of filling that supply hole this year or next (or next). Even the fastest-responding sources of production, namely U.S. shale, simply cannot respond quickly enough or with anywhere near the required volumes.  

https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/disp ... is-hormuz/

JaneJacobsGhost wrote:

moorlander wrote: ↑

4:33 PM - Mar 27

Crude oil
Diesel
LNG
Helium
Fertilizer

No LNG to produce things, no fertilizer to plant things, no diesel to transport things. So food, transportation, microchips, computers, phones, medications…all disrupted. And it may be many years before these are back online even if the war ended today.

We have zero power to militarily open the strait and all political options would require major concessions on our end. Aaaannnnddddd No amount of proclaiming victory will manifest one. Feel free to call me out if I’m wrong but this sh*t is just starting and the amounts route are starting to run out with no more supplies en route. A gallon of gas in Australia is up to $10 per. We very well could be looking a mass starvation, civil unrest, and global recession.

For example, The growing season starts soon in southern Europe and 2 weeks later Northern Europe. There are shortages of fertilizer, 20% of the cost of crops, and shortages of diesel to deliver and run that farming equipment. And some of Europe’s most fertile lands are already not producing due to our proxy war in Ukraine Trump refuses to end.

But hey at least we got gifted 10 make believe oil tankers from Iran. /s

You lost me at proxy war in Ukraine Trump refuses to end. We talking about the war Russia started and is losing to Ukraine? Trump has no ability to end the war Ukraine.

I am not talking about the war Russia started and is losing because that war doesn’t exist.

1. Russia didn’t start the war. The war started in 2014 when we spent billions there to back a coup. And arming the Ukrainians to the teeth.
2. Russia is winning be EVERY metric. This
3. Trump could end the proxy war against Ukraine today if he wanted. We just have to pull out all our people.
Who do you think provides targeting data, Intelligence, etc? by removing all of the US contractors, CIA operatives, and military who run our equipment over there. Ukrainians are not manning systems like Patriot, Himars,or even F16s.
4. Never ending nato expansion towards Russia.

Marco Rubio said…. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Wednesday interview described the war in Ukraine as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

By "never ending NATO expansion" you mean "countries willingly joining NATO as a safe guard against Russian aggression, which they are well known for."

Just because the US is bad doesn't mean Russia is good.


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. Russia is winning be EVERY metric
Ukraine strike on Russian chip plant sparks revolt among pro-war bloggers
“Given the scale of the damage, restoring the workshop without full reconstruction is unlikely, which effectively means the facility has been put out of operation,”
Things seem to be turning a bit with Ukraine getting an upper hand in the war and Moscow trying to crackdown on dissent by turning off mobile data, telegram and the like.


https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-strike-on-kremniy-el-plant-sparks-rift-between-russian-propaganda-and-milbloggers-50591092.html

Moorlander is a Russian op haha.

Russian western defense strategy has been the same for 400 years. Expand west until Russia can hide behind the Carpathian Mountains and forward position its troops on the Polish plain and the Bessarabian Gap.

Make no mistake, the Kremlin’s plan is to invade everything to its west until you can draw a strait line from Transnistria to Kronenberg.

The fact that the war started 4 years ago that Russian was suppose to win by 3 years ago 11 months and 3 weeks ago is still going means that Russia is losing by every metric.

Holy crap guys you can’t be serious. Yes Russia will
Win, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. And yes Russia is winning by EVERY metric. Ukraine had a small chance to win with their failed spring/summer offensive in 2023. After that failed so bad their fate was sealed.
The Ukrainian army is being methodically attritted. And Ukraine has no money to even stay solvent after the next few months.

moorlander wrote:

StlAlex wrote:By "never ending NATO expansion" you mean "countries willingly joining NATO as a safe guard against Russian aggression, which they are well known for."

Just because the US is bad doesn't mean Russia is good.


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Ummmm. See Cuba.

No not at all. Doesn’t matter NATO is powerless to do anything and likely won’t be around much longer. Many experts agree NATO serves no purpose after 1991.

Clearly that must be why Russia is so anti-NATO expansion to countries it wants to invade- because it serves no purpose.

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moorlander wrote: ↑

2:24 AM - Mar 30

Holy crap guys you can’t be serious.  Yes Russia will
Win, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. And yes Russia is winning by EVERY metric. Ukraine had a small chance to win with their failed spring/summer offensive in 2023. After that failed so bad their fate was sealed.
The Ukrainian army is being methodically attritted. And Ukraine has no money to even stay solvent after the next few months.

A lot will depend on how you define "winning." It's a little difficult to say for certain what Putin's goals were in his invasion of Ukraine, but given the enormous expenditure of men and materials on capturing Kiev in the early days of the war I think it's pretty clear that replacing the government was one of them, and that is clearly off the table. Ukraine successfully stopped the Russian offensive in its tracks, turning Putin's attempt at a Western style "thunder run" into an attritional slog, and while Russia can attrit a lot, so can Ukraine, and Ukraine has a hell of a lot more motivation on this one. If Putin's goal was weakening NATO or Europe then he has failed spectacularly, as NATO is larger and more determined to rearm, and Europe is more unified now than it was before the beginning of the war. Ukraine is closer to the west than before. Maybe they'll be kept out of NATO, but if they join the EU, or if NATO countries help to guarantee Ukraine's independence will that matter? Ukraine is unlikely to regain all its territory, but that's not really the primary goal. For Ukraine, surviving as an independent state is almost certainly the most important goal, and whatever else they might concede, their independence won't be a part of that.

Can Ukraine resist Russian aggression alone? Maybe not, but they don't need to. They have allies. Europe isn't going to back down. Ukraine has no need to stay solvent. Their partners will loan them all the money and materials they need. The EU clearly sees this as an existential threat, and they very much need Ukraine for their own security, particularly given the increasing unreliability of the US. Russia is losing more people, more equipment, and this is costing them more money. Ukraine has greater resolve and more robust supply lines. Russian military production is vulnerable to Ukranian attacks. Ukranian production is, by and in large, outside any theatre Russia could safely attack. Ukraine has better equipment and at this point better training. We're asking them to train us on drone countermeasures, for crying out loud.

The 2023 offensive was lovely, but they don't need to retake all the lost territory to "win." All they need to do is survive, and they will. At the present rate of advance Russia will not reach Kiev before the heat death of the universe. They don't have enough people to keep this up. They've nearly emptied their vast post-Soviet boneyards of useful tanks. The largest tank army in the history of the world is running out of tanks.

I'm no expert, mind. I just read and listen to the news. And this war is probably the most carefully reported and deeply analyzed conflict ever; the first where open source intelligence can really help you to fact check the claims of both sides. Perun's defense economics podcast is second to none. The Institute for the Study of War gives you plenty to chew on and some solid numbers and good maps. Anders Puck Nielson gives some good analysis from the European perspective. William Spaniel does a nice job of analyzing motivations and negotiating positions. There's good information out there, but you do have to look for it. It's simply not much in the US media at this point. We've gotten distracted by Trump, tariffs, Epstein, and now the Middle East.

Very well said.

What a horrible defeat for the US.
No regime change; unless you consider an even more hard line regime that demands concessions from the US, a positive change.
No taking of Iran’s nuclear materials. And Iran demanding the right to continue enriching uranium. Trump saying that’s okay.
Trump demanded that Iran open the ***** strait. Now he is willing to let them control it and collect tolls (he would even be willing to participate in toll collection). Talk about screwing over all our allies in the Persian Gulf region.
All US bases in the region seriously damaged. And all our allies taking hits to their infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the strait is still closed. Iran closed it in response to Israel bombing Lebanon.
The world is reaching the point where shortages of many items are happening because of the closure of the strait. And Iran is still refusing to open it because of US/Israeli violations of the ceasefire. The global economy is going into recession because of this.

Yeah but the libs want adolescent women to have access to feminine hygiene products at school sooooooo, both sides.

JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑

10:17 AM - 18 days ago

Yeah but the libs want adolescent women to have access to feminine hygiene products at school sooooooo, both sides.

AND litter boxes!