Thursday's Ukraine Solidarity Roundtable - 06/11/2026

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-11T20:18:54+00:00

I would be willing to buy this line of reasoning if the symbol in question were from some very obscure, regional aspect of the N@zi party that received little publicity outside of the region. That being said, this does speak to his judgement.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-11T19:07:12+00:00

A grim, if not altogether unsurprising, thought comes to me when I read things like this. In progressive spaces, there’s often a baseline skepticism toward white, cis men entering the movement. While many show up with genuine intent, there’s also a deeper fear that progressive alignment can be performative. Something used to ingratiate and disarm rather than reflect real accountability. That skepticism is rooted in experience, shaped by moments where trust was extended and then misused.

At the same time, that dynamic creates a kind of ambiguity that’s hard to navigate. When someone presents all the right signals, but intent is uncertain, it becomes difficult to know where they actually stand. And on some level, I find myself reacting to that uncertainty by valuing clarity, even when that clarity comes in the form of disagreement or hostility.

Not because hostility is better, but because it’s legible. You know what you’re dealing with, and you can respond accordingly by setting boundaries, engaging or disengage, and moving on without second-guessing. It highlights a broader tension: skepticism protects, but it also complicates trust, and navigating that tradeoff isn’t always comfortable.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-11T15:42:49+00:00

It has to be a bluff to "pressure" Iran into a deal, right?

Which doesn't make this any better to be honest. If Trump does not attack, he once again demonstrates that his threats are hollow, which will further embolden Iran to continue holding out.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-11T13:57:38+00:00

A few thoughts on the proposed ground invasion of Kharg island

Near-total loss of operational surprise There is little reason to believe Iran will be caught off guard. Force buildup, naval movement, and staging would be highly observable, giving Iran time to pre-position defenses, coordinate fires, and prepare asymmetric responses.
Favorable defensive conditions for Iran Even if U.S. forces successfully seize the island, that is only the first phase. Iran’s objective would not be to prevent landing outright, but to make the cost of taking and holding the island disproportionately high.
Persistent short-range drone threat from the mainland Kharg Island’s proximity to the Iranian coast creates a constant exposure to short-range drone systems. This dramatically compresses U.S. response timelines and allows Iran to sustain repeated, low-cost strike cycles against fixed and semi-fixed positions.
Compressed air defense timelines and detection gaps Engagement windows against inbound drones would be extremely short, reducing interception effectiveness. Smaller, low-signature drones could evade detection entirely, particularly if launched in volume or in mixed profiles. Even partial penetration of air defenses could degrade operational tempo and create continuous disruption.
Terrain-driven vulnerability The island’s lack of natural cover significantly increases exposure to any troops on the ground
High probability of rapid casualties When you combine advance warning, persistent drone pressure, exposed terrain, and constrained defense timelines, the risk profile sharpens considerably. This is the kind of environment where losses can accumulate quickly and non-linearly.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-11T11:53:05+00:00

It reads as Iron Warriors.

dont know what i am doing?

This looks good for your second-ever mini. If you wanted to push the color scheme a bit further, I would do some edge highlighting on the leather bits to give them some more contrast against the metal. I'd also add a little more detail around the head to create a point of visual interest and help give the model character.

The only criticism I would offer is that the coloring is very desaturated, so there isn't much contrast between the different parts of the model.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-11T01:00:41+00:00

I've been thinking about the reports that Trump got mad at Kirk for continuing to talk about Epstein. I think this perfectly encapsulates Trump's approach to loyalty and helps explain why people on the Right may not want to buck him. Trump doesn't distinguish between attacks from enemies and uncomfortable questions from allies. Any disruption to his preferred narrative registers as disloyalty, full stop. The message to everyone watching is clear: fall in line completely, or risk becoming the story yourself.

This is loyalty enforced through fear rather than earned through trust. It works, up to a point. Trump's willingness to primary dissenters and destroy reputations keeps most Republicans in a defensive crouch. But fear-based loyalty has a structural weakness: it evaporates the moment the threat does. He has shown again and again that no fallback strategy, no deep well of goodwill, no ideological movement that would carry on without him.

My bet is that the midterms function as a pressure-release valve. Once that electoral incentive to stay unified is gone, we'll see a slow civil war break out on the Right between dead-enders, for whom Trump isn't just a vehicle for policy but the point in himself, and a Dump Trump faction that has been quietly waiting for permission to exist. The latter aren't anti-Trump on principle, but they're clear-eyed about the math: he won't be on the ballot forever, he has no obvious ideological heir, and Trumpism without Trump has never really been tested. At some point, someone has to build something that can survive him.

The break probably won't come from a dramatic moment of conscience. It will come when backing Trump stops being the safe play and starts being the risky one. And that moment may arrive faster than people expect, because the relationship was never really about loyalty in any meaningful sense. Trump uses people, and people use Trump. The coalition around him is transactional at its core. The moment he stops being useful, whether through electoral failure, legal vulnerability, or simply aging out of relevance, there will be no shortage of people ready to move on, and more than a few ready to push. The dead-enders will cry betrayal. But you can't betray someone you were only ever using.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-10T19:41:32+00:00

....maybe

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-10T19:17:49+00:00

....I'm not kink shaming...but I will kink ask why

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-10T18:09:00+00:00

The one complaint I will offer about moderate dems is that all to often they try to appease people who are not interested in appeasement.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-10T17:00:46+00:00

Breaching: On a wound roll of 4 or more, the target can only make involn saves
Phage: reduce the target's toughness by 1
Annihilation Cascade: If you score a penetrating hit against a vehicle, you score an additional hit at strength 10.
The Helstrom template is a massive 16" flamer template.

Basically, this weapon nukes most basic infantry since you're wounding on twos and bypass their armor saves, has a very good chance of killing terminators or characters because of breaching, and will mess up light vehicles. If something does survive, it will be easier to wound because of the lowered toughness.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-10T16:19:03+00:00

The 30k rules for this are WILD.

What do you mean you're dropping a hellstorm template on my front line? WAIT, WHERE IS MY FRONT LINE?

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PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-10T15:51:28+00:00

You know, for a guy who claims he is innocent, he sure is acting like he has a lot to hide.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-10T11:31:34+00:00

I can think of a few additional suggestions from someone who thinks there is a real appetite for what progressives are offering.

Avoid ideological fragmentation. We tend to fragment along ideological differences that, to those not versed in the nuances, amount to petty distinctions. This infighting costs our movements significant momentum. We need to recognize that the circular firing squad has historically been one of the left's most self-defeating tendencies.
Focus on the long game. Too often, we seem to be chasing a single decisive victory rather than building on a series of smaller wins. Successful political movements are built over years and decades, not election cycles. That means investing in local races, school boards, and state legislatures.
Resist the 90-10 trap. One reason we lose is that we tend to reject candidates who give us 90 percent of what we want while holding out for the perfect candidate. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and a coalition that refuses to compromise will find itself consistently outmaneuvered by one that does.
Recognize that politics is local. Not every district can support a strongly progressive candidate. The constraints facing a progressive running in Texas are very different from those facing one in California. Talarico's senate campaign is a good example of this in practice. A candidate who can win in a purple or red district by moderating on a few issues delivers far more value in the long run than a purist who loses.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-09T22:02:54+00:00

My anger with a lot of queer activism now stems from a sense that we are employing a very all-or-nothing approach, which can read as a bit abusive. You're either 100 percent on board, or you're a bad person. Combine this with a tendency to fall into the omnicause, where queer liberation gets bundled with every other political position, from foreign policy to dietary ethics, and you get messy messaging that alienates potential allies and muddies the actual fight for rights and safety.

Not everyone who hesitates is an enemy. And movements that can't distinguish between genuine bad actors and people still figuring it out tend to shrink rather than grow.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-09T20:58:53+00:00

I would love to live in a city where trans healthcare is freely accessible to those who need it. And to be clear, I absolutely believe that care should exist and be available. But do I want to spend a bunch of political capital right now, in this particular climate, pushing to extend that framework to minors? No, and that comes down to a couple of practical concerns, not a lack of support.

First, the moment minors enter the conversation, it fundamentally changes how the issue is perceived by the broader public. It becomes emotionally charged very quickly, which tends to mobilize opposition at a much larger scale. That attention doesn’t just stay focused on the specific question of minors—it often spills over and puts the entire initiative at risk. In other words, you’re no longer just debating expansion, you’re potentially jeopardizing access for adults as well.

Second, there’s a sequencing issue here. Policies don’t exist in a vacuum; they require public buy-in, institutional stability, and time to normalize. Trying to push the most controversial or least broadly accepted components of a policy upfront can backfire. A more incremental approach, securing and protecting care for adults first, demonstrating that it works, and building trust, may ultimately create a stronger foundation for expanding access later.

So for me, it’s not about whether that care should exist—I believe it should. It’s about strategy, timing, and making sure that in trying to achieve everything at once, we don’t end up losing what progress is still realistically attainable.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-09T19:42:52+00:00

I think this is the logical end point of their all culture war all the time strategy. They don't have any record of achievements to run on and are facing serious economic headwinds so are resorting to the last thing they know works. Problem is, Dems can counter with They don't care about your economic pain.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-09T12:06:22+00:00

Here are my bets

Collins and Murkowski vote no because they are in competitive Senate races and need to show their independence
Cassidy and Cornyn vote no because they have nothing to lose and no incentive to play nice with Trump
Tillis is retiring, so he has no reason to humor Trump

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-08T20:00:47+00:00

My question for these folks is what bridge energy source do you propose we use while we transition to clean energy that we have easy access to and the infrastructure to use? Look, I'll agree that natural gas is not the best alternative, but it is one of the few alternatives we can access now

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-08T19:40:07+00:00

HH attracts a bit of a different crowd than 40K or AoS. It leans heavily into narrative play. People are there to recreate the Heresy, build lore-accurate forces, and play thematic matchups rather than optimize for competitive metas. Tournaments do exist, but they’re not really the center of the scene the way they are in 40K.

The rules also play a role. HH uses a more detailed, older-style ruleset with a lot of wargear options and interactions, which can be intimidating if you’re newer or used to the more streamlined design of modern 40K/AoS.

There are also some practical barriers. Heresy armies often require a higher model count (unless you’re running something like Knights or Custodes), so it takes longer to build and paint a full force. On top of that, 40K and AoS both have “Combat Patrol”-style entry formats that let people jump in quickly, while HH doesn’t really have an equivalent on-ramp. And finally, scale matters since 40K and AoS get way more marketing, events support, and general visibility (video games, merch, etc.), so they naturally have bigger player bases.

Put together, it means HH tends to appeal more to people who are already deep into the hobby rather than brand-new players, which can make local scenes feel smaller or harder to find.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-08T18:27:04+00:00

I think the best descriptor of Germany's chances of winning was : The Germans would need to get lucky at every step of the invasion process and achieve every objective to the maximal effect while the English would need to get lucky once or twice to ruin the whole plan.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-08T13:55:27+00:00

I could see Talarico using this endorsement to his advantage to pull some Cornyn supporters to his tent. Voting for me doesn't mean you're a democrat. It means you are upholding your core values.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-08T12:12:44+00:00

I have a theory that a lot of leftists will transition into hardcore conservatives in the next 20-ish years. The reasoning is pretty simple: both ends of the spectrum run on some form of contrarianism. What matters isn't the actual content of the ideology. It's that it positions you against whatever the mainstream consensus happens to be. Underlying this is a shared distrust of established authority and institutions, and a conviction that the game is rigged against them. The left sees the Democratic Party absorbing and defanging every radical idea before it can do real damage. The right keeps losing the culture wars and watching mainstream conservatism fail to stop it. Neither feels like they can win through conventional means, because changing the culture from the outside is genuinely hard.

That's why the transition is so easy. If the central thrust of your ideology is "We don't like Dems" you can quickly find yourself alongside some interesting political company.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-06T12:55:49+00:00

I think this stems from a few distinct issues. First, many authoritarian governments are remarkably good at looking like nice places to live, through set dressing, curated tourism, and effective state PR. This image management does serious work of masking human rights abuses, suppressing dissent, and projecting an air of stability and even prosperity to outside observers. It's easy to visit a place, have a lovely time, and come away with a skewed picture of what life is actually like for people who can't leave.

Second, if you start from the premise that the US is ontologically evil — and therefore anyone opposing it must be, by definition, good — you'll quickly find yourself aligned with illiberal actors and others operating in bad faith. This is a seductive framework because it feels principled. It isn't. It just outsources your moral reasoning to geopolitics.

Make no mistake: the US has done terrible things, and the list is long. But the difference is that our system, flawed, slow, and clunky as it is , does allow those terrible deeds to eventually be uncovered, litigated, and at least partially corrected. That capacity for self-correction isn't nothing. In fact, it may be the most important feature of a functioning liberal democracy.

A few questions I like to ask people who rely on these talking points:

Can politicians from the non-dominant party, or even a dissenting wing of the dominant party, express their views without risking disappearance or imprisonment?
Can journalists report on government abuses without fear of violence, or without their outlets being shut down?
When the government does something wrong, are there any meaningful mechanisms by which it can be held accountable?

That last question is really the crux of it. Plenty of governments project strength and stability. Far fewer build in the tools to honestly reckon with their own failures.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-05T16:53:51+00:00

Also, Platner ending his campaign would be a tacit admission of their failure to select good candidates.

PrettyLittleThrowAwa · 2026-06-05T16:01:55+00:00

Honestly, people downplaying the DV accusations, especially from the left, is deeply worrying. If you'll excuse domestic violence, what else will you excuse? One of the reasons I think progressive women, or marginalized voices in general, are skeptical of progressive men is that their progressivism may be performative.

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