Keith's absolutely annihilating A-block is for Michael and all the people here who remember and loathe Operation Iraqi Libera--oops, I mean Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The truth that the right doesn't want to here is that the poor and working class immigrants are what acts as a transfusion into America's lifeblood, generation after new generation.
Southeast Asians would come here, pool resources among a group of families, and buy a house. Then they would all work hard, get more money, and buy one of the families in the group a house of their own; and it was reiterative. The immigrants are far more prepared to make sacrifices and risk all in starting small undercapitalized businesses than the rest of us. MAGA Americans want a no risk free ticket, and they do resent those who actually sweat and toil to succeed.
I was talking to the guy repairing my garage door recently. He was a Romanian immigrant. He came over with less than $400; and worked every hard labor job that came along. Today he owns his own business, still goes out on calls, and is doing quite well. Immigrants ARE the American Dream.
MAGAs don't understand much of anything about any word concept. Yes, 'communism'; Marxism (ask them what part is Marxist, and how, that will confuse them); even 'capitalism'.
They get their info from propagandists, and their history from pseudo historians and old movies, most of which were used as propaganda in their day. So when you talk about the inaccuracies in their historical 'prospective', you offend them. President Reagan too often would quote from movies, bless his heart. And he had a mind enough to, on some issues, admit he was wrong and correct himself. But he also repeated those debunked stories he liked time after time.
It was kind of sad and pathetic, but also honorable, when Reagan admitted that we were indeed trading arms for hostages, even though at the time he didn't think that's what we were doing. But he was at a press conference and he admitted his policy was wrong.
For those of us of a given age, we remember how that during the 1960s, often the people who were advocating the most heinous actions were the undercover cops and feds. It happened far too often. No, not all the most radical were influenced by these guys, but many smaller groups were.
Do I think that the current FBI or most local PDs are clever enough to do this shit today? Not many, but a few, the especially shifty ones with grievances, they will infiltrate and create havoc.
Paraphrasing "the next election won't be about the economy; it'll be about immigration"
Probably true.
Except there's one YUGE joker in the deck: Iran. Will he actually get us involved militarily, meaning US bombers, bombs and men? I tend to doubt he'll do that, partially because TACO. But the dumbbells he's surrounded himself with, and now Fox News and clowns like Cruz and Hannity and others urging war ... Trump is what we called in the sales profession a "seat cushion". Whoever is the last person to sit on him is the one who'll make the lasting impression.
He and his drunk SecDEF are dumb enough to do just about anything.
Amen, Michael. And Bibi is dead set on regime change. Trump also revels in hanging with the stronger party and being in on the action. Even though this is tearing MAGA apart (who doesn't love to see a screaming match between Cruz and Tucker Carlson?), Trump really doesn't get to be proprietary about what "America First" means. If he does this, if American bases in the region get swarmed (and their air defenses are not as good as Trump thinks they are), our boys get killed and Trump decides to go all-in, this will destroy MAGA.
But that might not be worth what the rest of the world will have to suffer for it.
Interestingly, I'm watching John Brennan now on MSNBC. Lotsa moving parts to this mess
Gabbard has testified to Congress that Iran isn't close to a nuclear warhead. Brennan, who knows wtf he's talking about, says from everything he's heard, they're not close
So now, Gabbard is being iced out in favor of more hawkish and dishonest voices. Yes, it's possible to be more dishonest than Tulsi. Imagine that.
Brennan's conclusion is right in line with my seat cushion observation: Trump is being steered by Bibi and being led into a trap. These two fuks are gonna get us into this war.
Yep to all of that. I heard from a US lieutenant colonel on Times Radio this morning that Iran's uranium supply is at a higher level of enrichment than any county which is not a nuclear power, but there's been no recent quantitative advancement and it's still not enriched enough yet for a warhead, though they're getting close. This is just the idiocy of tearing up Obama's Iran nuclear agreement.
Because Trump is so utterly lacking in empathy, even the tactical, contingent empathy that many high-functioning narcissists good at business are capable of, because he truly can't see what the other side of a deal looks like, he's an abysmal negotiator. His idea of "deals" is this is my proposal, take it or leave it. Of course Zelenskiy gave him the finger. He tried this with Iran and Iran gave him the finger. It's not good-faith negotiation, it's a mob boss running a protection racket.
And because Iran is a Shi'ite theocracy with a tradition of millenarianism, they're not going to be cowed by military threats cuz holy war 'n' martyrs for Allah. And this is a golden moment for the mullahs who are deeply unpopular especially with the younger generations, because this kind of threat from both the Great and Little Satans is just the sort of jolt in the arm their regime's legitimacy needs. Kee-ryste.
Trump’s main weakness, among many, in times like this is that he wants to be liked, wants to be seen as powerful
But he’s so lacking in intellect and so blinded by his malignant narcissism that he can’t tell he’s being led around on a leash by a man who to inks he’s a clown. Like Putin, Bibi laughs at Trump in private
But wait! I keep hearing on the podcast Decoding Fox News and other news organizations that Trump has a strategy akin to 4th level chess........hahahahhahahahahaha
After 9/11, like many shocked and traumatized liberals, I found solace on the NYT A Nation Challenged forum (back in the olden days before paywalls) and thanks to tons of helpful links, I learned the origin story of the neoconservative movement, from Chicago classics professor and political philosopher Leo Strauss, through the Manhattan intellectuals. At the time, I full well heard the antisemitic dogwhistles but also realized that neocons were a real thing and that a few of the early ones were former Trotskyites, which kind of makes sense. I deduced it at the time as a form of imperialism, loaded (as most imperialisms are) with whopping amounts of cultural hubris.
Eric Edelman and Elliot Cohen, two neocons I loathed with the fire of 1000 suns when they were in the GW Bush administration, now do the Bulwark's Shield of the Republic podcast. They're the long-form geopolitical guys and it's nice to see them with the rest of the Never Trumpers.
But Rick, you and all the Dubya-vintage neocons were burned hard (as all of us were) by Iraq and Afghanistan and hopefully you've come away chastened. Now we have another regime change war, driven by the criminal lunatic and Judeosupremacist Bibi Netanyahu with Trump wanting to be along for the ride cuz he'll get to hang with the strong country that will blow the shit out of the weaker country and give 'em the big, beautiful American bunker buster bombs they don't have.
Without even the barest fig leaf this time of "liberating" the long suffering Iranian people from the repressive mullahs. This is a tragedy for the entire world if Trump pops the lid off this Pandora's box but if it happens -- and we're teetering on the edge -- it'll be nice to see the OG neocons in the same camp this time with Bernie, AOC and center-left peacenik liberals like myself. For once.
God, I swear I wrote something shockingly similar yesterday on FB. Also mentioned Iran here as the ultimate game changer (see above)
I can't remember the numbers, but Iraq had an army of like 100K men; Iran is infinitely larger, more professional, better organized and with greater weaponry. Despite Cheney telling us the war would last a few weeks and we'd be greeted as liberators, and - I SWEAR he said this - our soldiers would be pelted with chocolates when we arrived ...
... despite that, it lasted 10 years, cost $2T and 4k American lives and WE GOT NOTHING OUT OF IT.
Fact is, despite our military might - we spend more than the next 20 countries combined - we suck at war. Not since WWII have we delivered victory (I consider Iraq I to have been a layup). Korea was a draw and Vietnam an epic failure.
If we get involved militarily in Iran I can't imagine the consequences. And it won't go well, because our wars never do. Yet, Hannity and Fox and clowns like Ted Cruz are urging war
Yeah, I ranted about this OT at the top of the previous thread. Iran is not a military to trifle with. Trump thinks this'll be like Syria last term, a one-and-done blast and fuck you if you want to do anything to us back. And he's piggybacking on Bibi who has bloodlust in his heart, which maybe you can't blame Israel for since Iran is the biggest backer of the proxies against them. But maybe you can, too, because you don't just blow the shit out of a country on the chance they'd be willing to provoke a nuclear war.
But it's not geopolitics for Bibi anymore than it's geopolitics for Trump. Bibi is a deeply unpopular leader, approvals hovering around 20%, only in power because Likud coalesces with a number of tiny ultra-religious parties. Like Trump, he's another criminal who has to stay in power else he goes to prison and Bibi's ticket to staying in power is warmongering. The 10/7 Hamas attack was a gift from Adonai Himself to him.
We're used to dealing with Iranian proxies, the Houthis, the various militant groups in Iraq and Syria. We are not used to going up against the full weight of the Iranian military. We have bases in the region which are vulnerable to attack. If our B-2s drop those bunker busters, it won't be any one-and-done. It will be a fatwa against the US.
And Trump cannot strongarm Iran into giving up their nuclear program.
Oh, and incidentally, Pakistan is now threatening to nuke Israel. Fun times.
Keith's absolutely annihilating A-block is for Michael and all the people here who remember and loathe Operation Iraqi Libera--oops, I mean Operation Iraqi Freedom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xsor20m6D8
Rick, you had damn well better get right with Jesus on this.
Please, please, please stop doing the weird jump-cut edits, it sounds and looks like weird crap. Stop it.
Yeah, neo cons got us into the Iraq war
Well, yeah. They did. With the misbegotten idea that the US could get a seat at the OPEC table.
Nope.
Immigrants
The truth that the right doesn't want to here is that the poor and working class immigrants are what acts as a transfusion into America's lifeblood, generation after new generation.
Southeast Asians would come here, pool resources among a group of families, and buy a house. Then they would all work hard, get more money, and buy one of the families in the group a house of their own; and it was reiterative. The immigrants are far more prepared to make sacrifices and risk all in starting small undercapitalized businesses than the rest of us. MAGA Americans want a no risk free ticket, and they do resent those who actually sweat and toil to succeed.
I was talking to the guy repairing my garage door recently. He was a Romanian immigrant. He came over with less than $400; and worked every hard labor job that came along. Today he owns his own business, still goes out on calls, and is doing quite well. Immigrants ARE the American Dream.
Embarrassing misspelling.
"Hear" not "Here"
oopsy
Amen, OnT. It just chaps the ass of their Mediocre White Guy entitlement.
"Epithets"
MAGAs don't understand much of anything about any word concept. Yes, 'communism'; Marxism (ask them what part is Marxist, and how, that will confuse them); even 'capitalism'.
They get their info from propagandists, and their history from pseudo historians and old movies, most of which were used as propaganda in their day. So when you talk about the inaccuracies in their historical 'prospective', you offend them. President Reagan too often would quote from movies, bless his heart. And he had a mind enough to, on some issues, admit he was wrong and correct himself. But he also repeated those debunked stories he liked time after time.
It was kind of sad and pathetic, but also honorable, when Reagan admitted that we were indeed trading arms for hostages, even though at the time he didn't think that's what we were doing. But he was at a press conference and he admitted his policy was wrong.
"Conspiracies"
For those of us of a given age, we remember how that during the 1960s, often the people who were advocating the most heinous actions were the undercover cops and feds. It happened far too often. No, not all the most radical were influenced by these guys, but many smaller groups were.
Do I think that the current FBI or most local PDs are clever enough to do this shit today? Not many, but a few, the especially shifty ones with grievances, they will infiltrate and create havoc.
Thanks Rick just settling down to catch up on Substack Missed a lot of live events though
Hates brown people. Wtaf
This is total insanity. When does the train stop. It's only June….JFC
Paraphrasing "the next election won't be about the economy; it'll be about immigration"
Probably true.
Except there's one YUGE joker in the deck: Iran. Will he actually get us involved militarily, meaning US bombers, bombs and men? I tend to doubt he'll do that, partially because TACO. But the dumbbells he's surrounded himself with, and now Fox News and clowns like Cruz and Hannity and others urging war ... Trump is what we called in the sales profession a "seat cushion". Whoever is the last person to sit on him is the one who'll make the lasting impression.
He and his drunk SecDEF are dumb enough to do just about anything.
Amen, Michael. And Bibi is dead set on regime change. Trump also revels in hanging with the stronger party and being in on the action. Even though this is tearing MAGA apart (who doesn't love to see a screaming match between Cruz and Tucker Carlson?), Trump really doesn't get to be proprietary about what "America First" means. If he does this, if American bases in the region get swarmed (and their air defenses are not as good as Trump thinks they are), our boys get killed and Trump decides to go all-in, this will destroy MAGA.
But that might not be worth what the rest of the world will have to suffer for it.
Interestingly, I'm watching John Brennan now on MSNBC. Lotsa moving parts to this mess
Gabbard has testified to Congress that Iran isn't close to a nuclear warhead. Brennan, who knows wtf he's talking about, says from everything he's heard, they're not close
So now, Gabbard is being iced out in favor of more hawkish and dishonest voices. Yes, it's possible to be more dishonest than Tulsi. Imagine that.
Brennan's conclusion is right in line with my seat cushion observation: Trump is being steered by Bibi and being led into a trap. These two fuks are gonna get us into this war.
Yep to all of that. I heard from a US lieutenant colonel on Times Radio this morning that Iran's uranium supply is at a higher level of enrichment than any county which is not a nuclear power, but there's been no recent quantitative advancement and it's still not enriched enough yet for a warhead, though they're getting close. This is just the idiocy of tearing up Obama's Iran nuclear agreement.
Because Trump is so utterly lacking in empathy, even the tactical, contingent empathy that many high-functioning narcissists good at business are capable of, because he truly can't see what the other side of a deal looks like, he's an abysmal negotiator. His idea of "deals" is this is my proposal, take it or leave it. Of course Zelenskiy gave him the finger. He tried this with Iran and Iran gave him the finger. It's not good-faith negotiation, it's a mob boss running a protection racket.
And because Iran is a Shi'ite theocracy with a tradition of millenarianism, they're not going to be cowed by military threats cuz holy war 'n' martyrs for Allah. And this is a golden moment for the mullahs who are deeply unpopular especially with the younger generations, because this kind of threat from both the Great and Little Satans is just the sort of jolt in the arm their regime's legitimacy needs. Kee-ryste.
Trump’s main weakness, among many, in times like this is that he wants to be liked, wants to be seen as powerful
But he’s so lacking in intellect and so blinded by his malignant narcissism that he can’t tell he’s being led around on a leash by a man who to inks he’s a clown. Like Putin, Bibi laughs at Trump in private
But wait! I keep hearing on the podcast Decoding Fox News and other news organizations that Trump has a strategy akin to 4th level chess........hahahahhahahahahaha
Egg. Fucken. Zakley.
After 9/11, like many shocked and traumatized liberals, I found solace on the NYT A Nation Challenged forum (back in the olden days before paywalls) and thanks to tons of helpful links, I learned the origin story of the neoconservative movement, from Chicago classics professor and political philosopher Leo Strauss, through the Manhattan intellectuals. At the time, I full well heard the antisemitic dogwhistles but also realized that neocons were a real thing and that a few of the early ones were former Trotskyites, which kind of makes sense. I deduced it at the time as a form of imperialism, loaded (as most imperialisms are) with whopping amounts of cultural hubris.
Eric Edelman and Elliot Cohen, two neocons I loathed with the fire of 1000 suns when they were in the GW Bush administration, now do the Bulwark's Shield of the Republic podcast. They're the long-form geopolitical guys and it's nice to see them with the rest of the Never Trumpers.
But Rick, you and all the Dubya-vintage neocons were burned hard (as all of us were) by Iraq and Afghanistan and hopefully you've come away chastened. Now we have another regime change war, driven by the criminal lunatic and Judeosupremacist Bibi Netanyahu with Trump wanting to be along for the ride cuz he'll get to hang with the strong country that will blow the shit out of the weaker country and give 'em the big, beautiful American bunker buster bombs they don't have.
Without even the barest fig leaf this time of "liberating" the long suffering Iranian people from the repressive mullahs. This is a tragedy for the entire world if Trump pops the lid off this Pandora's box but if it happens -- and we're teetering on the edge -- it'll be nice to see the OG neocons in the same camp this time with Bernie, AOC and center-left peacenik liberals like myself. For once.
God, I swear I wrote something shockingly similar yesterday on FB. Also mentioned Iran here as the ultimate game changer (see above)
I can't remember the numbers, but Iraq had an army of like 100K men; Iran is infinitely larger, more professional, better organized and with greater weaponry. Despite Cheney telling us the war would last a few weeks and we'd be greeted as liberators, and - I SWEAR he said this - our soldiers would be pelted with chocolates when we arrived ...
... despite that, it lasted 10 years, cost $2T and 4k American lives and WE GOT NOTHING OUT OF IT.
Fact is, despite our military might - we spend more than the next 20 countries combined - we suck at war. Not since WWII have we delivered victory (I consider Iraq I to have been a layup). Korea was a draw and Vietnam an epic failure.
If we get involved militarily in Iran I can't imagine the consequences. And it won't go well, because our wars never do. Yet, Hannity and Fox and clowns like Ted Cruz are urging war
WTF
Yeah, I ranted about this OT at the top of the previous thread. Iran is not a military to trifle with. Trump thinks this'll be like Syria last term, a one-and-done blast and fuck you if you want to do anything to us back. And he's piggybacking on Bibi who has bloodlust in his heart, which maybe you can't blame Israel for since Iran is the biggest backer of the proxies against them. But maybe you can, too, because you don't just blow the shit out of a country on the chance they'd be willing to provoke a nuclear war.
But it's not geopolitics for Bibi anymore than it's geopolitics for Trump. Bibi is a deeply unpopular leader, approvals hovering around 20%, only in power because Likud coalesces with a number of tiny ultra-religious parties. Like Trump, he's another criminal who has to stay in power else he goes to prison and Bibi's ticket to staying in power is warmongering. The 10/7 Hamas attack was a gift from Adonai Himself to him.
We're used to dealing with Iranian proxies, the Houthis, the various militant groups in Iraq and Syria. We are not used to going up against the full weight of the Iranian military. We have bases in the region which are vulnerable to attack. If our B-2s drop those bunker busters, it won't be any one-and-done. It will be a fatwa against the US.
And Trump cannot strongarm Iran into giving up their nuclear program.
Oh, and incidentally, Pakistan is now threatening to nuke Israel. Fun times.
MAGA wants to see a bunch of Mexican flags too. I say let’s get the protesters to wave American flags.
Worse title yet but very true