The US is in a position to join the treaty to ban cluster bombs, and it ought to do so.

The Putin forces are using many levels of pressure to force children in occupied Ukraine to study a brainwashing curriculum, and force teachers to teach it.

When people don't want the pain of resisting oppression, they tend to justify collaborating with it by claiming that by participating they can soften the oppression. In principle, that can be true. In practice, it is usually self-delusion. You can pretend you are resisting in a subtle way, while actually doing exactly what the oppressor wants.

Collaboration plus dragging your feet may seem like an opportunity to be neutral, but the occupying forces don't stand for neutrality: they demand that everyone give complete support and participate in the repression.

Thus, the teachers who agreed to collaborate were compelled to do more than just teach the Putin curriculum. They also had to join in measures to attack and punish teachers who did not join in. The price of collaborating under these circumstances is to become totally corrupt and totally evil. Then how can you live with yourself?

Has Putin ever organized such complete dishonesty before? I have to wonder if he is getting advice on brainwashing from his Chinese allies.

What will NATO do if Putin uses nuclear, biological or chemical weapons?

As long as Putin does not use weapons of mass destruction, even "tactical" ones, the reasoning remains valid that we should not have NATO troops fight in the war, so as to avoid direct fighting between NATO and Putin, since that fighting could turn nuclear.

However, that reason will lose its validity if Putin does use them. To deter him from using them, we should make it clear that his use of weapons of mass destruction could trigger NATO's use of conventional weapons against the Putin forces and Russia's military power, at least for a while.

After a week or two of that fighting, it would make sense to give him a chance to deescalate — offering to pull the NATO troops out of the fighting if Putin commits to ceasing use of weapons of mass destruction.

The bullshitter appointed a special investigator in 2020 to investigate alleged crimes committed by Hillary Clinton with Russia. The investigation is winding down and appears to have found little or nothing against her.

The bullshitter may choose not to notice the facts and continue repeating his accusations.

When it comes to meeting people's basic needs, the US is not number 1. It is now ranked number 41, ranking between Cuba and Bulgaria.

Those two are "developing countries", but the US is an "undeveloping country."

I suppose the reasons for specific faults are complex, but it is clear that plutocracy is the fundamental reason the US does so badly with so much money.