"Most of the the Parma voters I spoke with aren't thinking about domestic politics right now. When I asked what they thought about Trump saying that Putin was a "genius and "savvy," several blamed fake news/liberal journalists or insisted that Trump was just "joking around with the media."

You can see the crosspressures at work. On the one hand, Parma is textbook Republican territory: 90 percent white with a median age above the national average, and education levels far below the national average. But these demographics are running headlong into "America First."

Originally Posted By NEXT23:
So what do I need to be watching for.

France running out all their subs is one…..and?

Originally Posted By MeestaSparkle:


Just food for thought.  They aren't letting in a random cross-section of Ukrainians.  For refugess status you have to show some kind of oppression based on race, religion, lgbtq, etc.  Here is what is being reported about who they plan to open up for:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna21106

"The plan would allow vulnerable Ukrainians, specifically activists, journalists and those who are part of the LGBTQ community, to safely enter the U.S. at least temporarily. It would also expedite the reunification of Ukrainians with U.S.-based family members, the sources said."

I'm not commenting on the morality of whatever restrictions, just did not see any requirements mentioned in the discussion.

Originally Posted By SpaceGuy:
Regarding Ukranians and how they vote in the US, just look at what they said when liberal news media came to Parma, Ohio since it has one of, or the, largest groups of Ukranians in the USA:


This was from an article of a hyper-anti-Republican website (https://www.thebulwark.com/the-politics-of-ukraine-in-an-ohio-town/), and it definitely paints Ohio's Ukranians as being rabidly conservative.

Originally Posted By rca2222:

Our immigration system favors poor third world citizens, so it's obvious why the data you posted is true. We turn away people that are likely to be anti-communist, like Cubans.

Originally Posted By odiedodi:
I'm alright with taking a few million, but statistically, a majority immigrants and refugees vote left. They just do, and we won't know if Ukrainians are any different until after they come here. I'm curious if there's data out about the ones that came as a result of the revolution a few years back. I knew a couple and got along with them just fine.

Maria Butina, a Russian woman convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent before and after the 2016 election, is among the hundreds of Russian lawmakers facing new sanctions from the Biden administration.

The US Treasury announced on Thursday that 328 members of Russia's State Duma  the lower house of its parliament  will be sanctioned for supporting Russia's month-long war against Ukraine.

Butina pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent after prosecutors alleged she forged ties with powerful conservatives and the National Rifle Association to try and influence policy in Russia's favor. At her sentencing in 2019, Judge Tanya Chutkan noted that Butina came to the United States as a graduate student at American University but was "not simply seeking to learn about the US political system."

Chutkan described Butina's scheme as "sophisticated" and noted that it coincided with Russia's interference in US elections.

Butina served 15 months in prison before returning to Russia and becoming a member of the Duma.

In a New York Times interview last year, Butina insisted that she "wasn't a spy" for Russia and that her Duma seat was not a "reward."

In addition to Russian lawmakers, dozens of defense companies and the CEO of its largest financial institution Sberbank are being targeted by the sanctions.
"The United States, with our partners and allies, is striking at the heart of Russia's ability to finance and carry out its warfare and atrocities against Ukraine, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said in the statement.

She added: "The Russian State Duma continues to support Putin's invasion, stifle the free flow of information, and infringe on the basic rights of the citizens of Russia. We call on those closest to Putin to cease and condemn this cold-blooded war."

Originally Posted By MeestaSparkle:
Just food for thought.  They aren’t letting in a random cross-section of Ukrainians.  For refugess status you have to show some kind of oppression based on race, religion, lgbtq, etc.  Here is what is being reported about who they plan to open up for:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna21106

“The plan would allow vulnerable Ukrainians, specifically activists, journalists and those who are part of the LGBTQ community, to safely enter the U.S. at least temporarily. It would also expedite the reunification of Ukrainians with U.S.-based family members, the sources said.”

I’m not commenting on the morality of whatever restrictions, just did not see any requirements mentioned in the discussion.

Last November, during Matteo's working visit to Moscow, my boss arranged a private meeting with him, renting a room on the same floor of the Lotte Hotel to prevent the Western press from catching wind of the meeting.

So wrote Mikhail Yakushev, a Russian national, in a Microsoft Word document he emailed to himself on June 18, 2019. Yakushev is the director of Tsargrad, an organization in Russia that describes itself as a group of companies whose mission is "the revival of the greatness of the Russian Empire."

"Matteo" referred to Matteo Salvini, the former Italian deputy prime minister and interior minister and current leader of the League, Italy's nationalist and anti-migrant party. Now a senator in Italy's upper chamber of Parliament, Salvini has been an avowed admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom in 2019 he labeled "the best statesman currently on earth."

The documents and digital correspondence, obtained by New Lines from the London-based Dossier Center, in collaboration with Estonian news outlet Delfi, Italian magazine l'Espresso, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and German public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk, offer documentary evidence of just how much a major European party known for its racist and xenophobic politics has relied on financing and strategic political support from a key proxy and influence peddler of the Kremlin.

As Moscow rounds out its first month of an illicit war in Ukraine undertaken on a flimsy pretext of "de-Nazification," these communications show it is thoroughly aligned with a host of extremist right-wing politicians and activists throughout Europe who come far closer to satisfying the definition of fascism than does the embattled government in Kyiv.

Yakushev's boss and the chairperson of the Tsargrad group of companies is Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian politician and business owner more commonly known as the "Orthodox oligarch" for his outward religiosity. Malofeev has been sanctioned by the EU and the U.S. for his involvement in the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukrainian control in 2014. Ukraine has accused him of financing illegal pro-Russian paramilitary groups.

In the document Yakushev sent himself, he expressed concern that the "situation had drastically deteriorated" and "now we cannot continue to have contact with Matteo." According to the document, the contact between Salvini and Tsargrad had been Salvini's adviser Gianluca Savoini, who had "lost his free access to his boss."

In February, the Italian magazine l'Espresso published an investigation in which it revealed Savoini's secret negotiations in Moscow with an apparent aim to acquire millions of euros' worth of covert funding to the League ahead of the EU parliamentary elections in 2019.

As a result of that expos, Yakushev's document noted that Savoini was "under the watchful eye of the local [Italian] security services." He pondered how to get in contact with Salvini, whom he always referred to by his first name, "so that he can allocate a reliable person to contact us, with whom we can communicate in Russia or anywhere in Europe."

The same document described a plan to hold a convention in the fall of 2019 at the Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg. The leaders of the European Parliament's freshly created Identity and Democracy faction, uniting its far-right political parties, would be invited to attend. The meeting would be covered by the international press.

The event never took place.

Originally Posted By glklvr:


If she seduces me, I'll tell her everything I know about American politics and the military industrial complex.

I can guarantee both events will be disappointing.

Originally Posted By THOT_Vaccine:



Russia's alligator landing ships. They had been using them to land men and equipment for the costal area...

Operative words "had been"

Originally Posted By mnd6563:

No, I'm talking about Ukrainian refugees.  Educated, white people with conservative values and ethics.  But at the same time, we need some good hispanics as well.  We have a huge shortage of workers in this country and it is not going to get better anytime soon.  Ukrainians developed the first Russian A-bomb, their space program, their biotech program, ship building, steel industry, and aerospace industry.  Seems like a type of population that could succeed in the US.

Originally Posted By HIPPO:
Where is Sergei?

Kremlin spokesman about Sergei Shoigu: “Oh, he’s just busy.” pic.twitter.com/25qgjGPKX8

Julia Davis  (@JuliaDavisNews) March 24, 2022

Peskov commented on Shoigu's disappearance

"Defense minister has a lot of a lot of worries. A special military operation is underway. Of course, this is not exactly time for media activity."

Earlier, #Russian media noted that Shoigu has not appeared in public since March 11. pic.twitter.com/tE7VWyxnui

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 24, 2022

Originally Posted By Phocks:


In theory, Cubans don't get special treatment, in practice Cubans that reach the US get to stay forever because reasons.  The number of Cuban smuggling (people and narcotics) organizations on the southern border has exploded.  And despite the rhetoric here, the overwhelming majority of Cubans arriving in the last 20 years are coming here for an easy life, not ideology.  Out of hundreds of Cubans I've interviewed, only 2 presented even vaguely credible actual asylum cases.  The rest already had jobs and apartments lined up, and almost all show up wearing nice clothes and stylish haircuts.  The women, without exception, have freshly done nails, which is something that sticks out for me for some reason.