The Myth of Soviet Power in WWII

Much ado is made of Hitler, his ill fated decision to invade Russia right before winter, and, for those who've really drank the cool aid, how the Russians could have kicked Nazi Germany's butt without Allied assistance. However, when you get right down to it, the Soviet Empire would almost certainly have fallen without outside assistance, and certainly wouldn't have been able to do better than a stalemate without it.

20% of all Soviet armored vehicles came from Lend-Lease.
30% of their fighters and bombers were Lend-Lease.
59% of their non-armored tactical vehicles (this category includes Jeeps, trucks, and half-tracks, but it's worth noting that the US sent more trucks than the Soviets total production in this category).
Food aid and petroleum products numbered in the millions of tons.
Then there's the almost 2000 locomotives provided (mostly steam, with less than a hundred diesel locomotives) and close to 10000 train cars to go with them.

I've seen some people make the specious argument that "The Soviets didn't like our weapons, so they got assigned to rear echelon roles where it didn't make a difference". This argument is, of course wrong, for a couple of reasons:

1. Rear echelon roles are still vital - a Sherman in the rear frees up a T34 for the front.
2. They likes several of our designs so much that they based designs of their own on them, or in some cases (such as the B-29) blatantly copied it in the post war era.
3. Sheer numbers meant that entire units were armed with lend-lease weapons - and those units did see combat using those weapons.
4. It of course completely ignores all the support vehicles, trains, food, and petroleum producs that were also a part of lend-lease.

In fact, we really only need to look at one category to understand just what would have happened to the Soviets without lend-lease - Trucks. The US gave the Soviets more trucks (1 1/2 and 2 1/2 ton models) than the entire non-armored vehicle production of the Soviet Union during the course of the war. Without those trucks, the USSR's logistics capability would have been more than halved. If you can't get ammunition, food, and fuel, let alone replacement weapons and repair parts to the front lines, you can't win.

Sources:
https://ww2-weapons.com/lend-lease-tanks-and-aircrafts/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union
https://history.army.mil/books/AMH-V2/PDF/Chapter05.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease_Sherman_tanks#USSR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Guards_Mechanized_Corps_(Soviet_Union)

On Trump and Russia.

For the record (and as is fairly evident from reading past posts) I'm not a terribly big fan of Donald Trump. As far as I'm concerned, he was the third worst option last election cycle, running against the worst option.
Based off of his past views as expressed in his (mostly former at this point) associations and written words, he is one of three things:

1. Newly conservative, at a time when most people are quite settled in their ways, and having been a Democrat for the majority of his life
2. A liberal pretending to be a republican (based off of his actions since becoming president, this one is now the least likely scenario, unless he's playing a far deeper game than any US politician has played in decades).
3. A populist with no truly personal political views. I favor this theory, because he's changed political affiliations a total of seven times over the course of his life.

Whatever the case may be, the fact that he's turned out to not be Hillary Clinton with better taste in clothes is not a ringing endorsement.

With that in mind, I have a few things to say to liberals when it comes to Trump.

• This is your fault just as much as it is the conservatives. Trump won the primary, not despite the bad press, but because of it. When you turned Mitt Romney, perhaps the squishiest and most liberal Republican in the party, into the next thing to Hitler, and earlier, John McCain, who is probably the biggest swing vote in the Senate, into the reincarnation of Goebbels, you destroyed your credibility. So when Trump came along, and he actually was an asshole, no one believed you, and a significant portion of the electorate voted for him BECAUSE you said he was an asshole. Then you compounded the issue by running Hillary Clinton against him. You picked the one candidate capable of getting libertarians of any stripe to vote for Trump. You could have ran Jim Webb, who probably could have stolen a good chunk of conservatives from Trump. You could have ran Bernie Sanders, who despite being a batshit crazy socialist could've drawn a significant number of new voters, and basically all current leftist voters. Instead, you ran the absolute worst candidate you could've ran, one who alienated not just conservatives, but a good chunk of middle, and who failed to draw in any new voters to make up for the way she alienated the more conservative portion of the middle.
• Remember the birther controversy? A lot of your recent ideas about getting rid of Trump are just as foolish. The whole "Russia" debacle? Not doing you any favors. If you don't have the conclusive ability to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, you probably shouldn't be making a big deal out of it. Otherwise, just like the birthers, when you can't prove it, you look completely retarded and help out your opposition.
• Even should you manage to oust Trump, you'll get Mike Pence. You don't want Mike Pence. Hillary doesn't even get another shot until 2020, at which point in time you should probably pick another candidate. You're not getting any other democrat, because you'd need to impeach and remove from office 5 people before you got to someone who isn't a Republican. And, not only is he not a democrat, I doubt that you'd enjoy President "Mad Dog" Mattis. This assumes of course that you impeach people faster than replacements can be nominated, which is itself extremely unlikely.

That's it for now. Enjoy your free advice.

When in Doubt, blame the US

Putin is currently accusing the US of helping the Chechen terrorists. I think he's just sore because no matter how hard he tries to disarm the Chechens, the black market and shadetree gunsmiths conspire to keep them armed.
He also claims that "The west is only friendly with Russia when it is on its knees." If true, it might have something to do with such places as Crimea and Georgia, which showed that a Russia that isn't on it's knees makes a really bad neighbor.

Putin defended the annexation of Crimea as a response to the will of the people, which restored "historic justice."

If Putin gets to defend the annexation of Crimea as "historic justice", then we should just resurrect Manifest Destiny and reconquer Mexico. I mean, if that's all the justification that you need to forcibly annex large chunks of land, then we need to get back into the conquering business and really build an American Empire.

FCC Fools

Because fools would think that using a hostile nation's resources to replace critical infrastructure would be a good idea. The reasoning for this is that the current 911 system has a hard time locating people using cell phones indoors. The proposed solution to the problem is to utilize GLONASS, the Russian version of GPS, to figure out where the distressed person(s) is(are).
Why even mention GLONASS? While it does offer complete coverage of the Earth, so does GPS (something none of its other competitors, can offer), and GPS is unarguably US. And if the FSB cant figure out some use for this information, I have a nice piece of land for sale in Nye County, Nevada.