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Terence Hughes's avatar

The tectonic plates are shifting under us. The US has seeded its own end. The East is red; their sun has risen indeed. In a year the world will look very different.

It’s an epochal change in the same way that the discovery of America led to the worldwide domination of the world by the West.

Debra Rowley's avatar

We knew we would get to this point, and now we face the enemy with brevity!

Mike's avatar

There is nothing stupider and more facile than boasting about kills as some sort of sign of winning, But ... we do it Every. Fucking. War.

I'm old enough to remember the 6:00 News: "Fighting today in the Central Highlands ... 35 Viet Cong killed". McNamara, Westmoreland and the boys thought we could kill our way to victory. Then ... millions of Chinese started pouring down the Ho Chi Minh trail. Ooooops.

Or maybe you prefer Afghanistan? "Heavy fighting resulted in senior al Qaeda leader Allah bin Blabah being killed". There were 500 Allah bin Blabah wannabees waiting to take his place. And they were worse. Ooooops.

Mission Accomplished? HAHAHAHAHAHA

"Progress today in Iraq as the US killed 200 Iraqi fighters". Fedayeen enter the chat. Oooops.

"Final throes"? Double HAHAHHAHAHAH. Only missed that one by 9.7 years, Dick

We are terrible at war

Bob McKeown's avatar

And this one is running ZAKLEY according to the McNamara script :P

The only thing different now is that the reporters Hegseth screams at for reporting combat deaths were all handpicked by him for stenographic sycophancy and include Laura Loomer.

Mike's avatar

Ever see Eisenhower's farewell speech? It was brilliant

He warned of the danger of the military industrial complex and today, that's the straw that stirs all the drinks

Think about Iraq: A nation of 26M in '02, and a depleted military with no advanced weaponry; they couldn't even get a plane in the air.

And so we, the country that spends more on defense than the next 16 countries COMBINED, invaded, bombed, did everything except fire a few nukes and it took us 10 years to get out of there with nothing to show for it

Iran is almost 4X its size with serious weaponry and and a military that's infinitely larger than Iraq. And we have a drunk SECDEF and a POTUS who's a puppet of Bibi and Putin.

How in the fuck does this end well?

Mike's avatar
Mar 8Edited

World War Trump. Excellent. Imagine the branding opportunities. How 'bout Whack A Trump.

- A digital map of the world, designed with crayons by Eric. You click on a country, a Hegseth avatar pops up and you're forced to take a shot(s) of Tito's.

- Click on a blue state and your contact info is immediately sent to ICE. Within minutes, 3 masked goons with Trump level B.O. knock down your door and drag you out to a kidnap van with Guatemala plates

And so on.

How has he NOT thought of this?

Bob McKeown's avatar

Let's all raise a toast to the nation of France. Hell, while we're at it, let's raise a toast to Bulgaria, too, who two months ago chased their prime minister out of office on a wave of national protest.

In fact, let's do Bulgaria first. Here's my favorite folk metal band KhanЪ wailing that perpetual South Slavic butthurt permanently imparted by the Ottoman yoke. In 7/8 cuz Bulgarian ;)

I love their clean vocalist (they have a harsh vocalist, too) Nikolay Madzharov. What a belter ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FUQob3Ms_Y

Ahh, but France. France! Emmanuel Macron just sack tapped Trump by proposing to beef up France's nuclear deterrent and extending its umbrella to all of Europe, since Trump is in the process of trashing everything about the postwar order. Now look, I've been an antinuke guy my whole life, marched in multiple nuclear freeze protests. But you know what? My old hippie views are changing. If the US under Trump is gonna act like a rogue state, France and Europe have every right and obligation to defend themselves. So bring on the French ICBMs, bay-bee ;)

Seems like France now is taking up the tattered banner of Western civilization. The Anglosphere shit the bed starting with John Locke. It gave us the natural rights tradition, which is great, but they (we) slid so far down the cracker on individualism that Western values have become nihilism.

Which is exactly what, you know, Friedrich Nietzsche was trying to warn us about.

Now playing: ni, Orbe

I was idly checking my junk folder and saw a Dur et Doux newsletter which I instantly made not junk. There's a new ni video in it. Goodness ;). I can't really tell y'all how much I love French mathcore as a musical style. The intro to this is almost funky, in a sweaty, autistic way ... and then the riffs come in. Oh, the subdivisions in those riffs. Stravinsky approves from the grave ;) I'm doubtless the only guy in a HUD-subsidized senior building with a poster of Frank Zappa on his door (just to let my neighbors know what they're dealing with, LOL) and the only guy who bops around his apartment like a spastic monkey to music like this, cuz odd time signature addiction ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhCmLBqDU-0

Another thing about the Francosphere? They love their artists, even oddballs like ni, Magma (a veritable French national monument), Miriodor and Anne Quillier. Anne's ensembles can play to enthusiastic audiences in tiny clubs and black box theaters and take home barely enough to maintain their equipment, her wardrobe can be almost as shabby as mine, but Anne and Pierre will always have a roof over their heads, good food and a nice Merlot on the table, because of French government arts grants.

Which, I dunno, maybe you can get in America now if you're a Kiss cover band :P

CeCe Writer's avatar

Prison guards discussed cover-up of Epstein’s death, inmate tells FBI

Julie K. Brown

jbrown@miamiherald.com

12 hrs ago

An inmate housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York told the FBI he overheard guards talking about covering up Jeffrey Epstein’s death on the morning he died.

The federal government’s online Epstein library contains a five-page handwritten report of an FBI interview with an inmate who awoke the morning of Aug. 10, 2019 to the loud commotion in the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, where he and Epstein were jailed.

“Breathe! Breathe!” he recalled officers shouting about 6:30 a.m.

Then he said he heard an officer say “Dudes, you killed that dude.”

A female guard replied “If he is dead, we’re going to cover it up and he’s going to have an alibi -- my officers,” the FBI notes said. The inmate claimed the whole wing overheard the exchange.

Later, after learning Epstein had died, he said inmates said “Miss Noel killed Jeffrey.”

He identified the female guard as Tova Noel, one of two correctional officers who were later charged with falsifying reports so that it appeared from their records that they had made their rounds that night – when they had not. The charges against her and the other officer, Michael Thomas, were later dropped, but both were fired.

The inmate’s account has not been substantiated, but it nevertheless raises questions about Epstein’s in-custody death. Both the New York Medical Examiner and the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Epstein died by suicide. Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s estate to attend the autopsy, has said he believes the injuries to Epstein were more akin to strangulation than suicide.

Read More: Perversion of Justice, the Jeffrey Epstein story

But the FBI report is likely to fan suspicion, as the New York Post also reported on Saturday that Noel’s bank flagged a $5,000 cash deposit she made to her Chase Bank account on July 30, 2019 – a week after Epstein was found in his cell in what prison officials concluded was a suicide attempt on July 23, 2019. The official reports into that incident show that Epstein initially told prison officials that his cellmate had tried to kill him after extorting him for money.

The Post also reported that on the morning of Epstein’s death on Aug. 10, Noel searched the term “latest on Epstein in jail” twice – once at 5:42 a.m. and again at 5:52 a.m., about 40 minutes before the other guard, Michael Thomas, found Epstein.

Her bank records, which are in the files, showed that Noel received thousands of dollars in cash and Zelle payments in the months before Epstein died. She has not been charged with any crime. The Miami Herald was unsuccessful in reaching her attorney on Saturday.

Epstein’s former cellmate, Efrain Reyes, told prison officials that he told Epstein he would be safer if he paid inmates and guards for protection. Sources have told the Herald that Epstein did make protection payments.

Noel’s bank records also reveal that she was making payments on a brand new Range Rover.

But she was not asked about the cash during her DOJ interview.

Epstein had three fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx, and Baden said it is rare for any bones to be broken in a hanging, let alone for multiple bones to be fractured. “Those fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation,” said Baden, who added that there were hemorrhages in Epstein’s eyes that are also more common in strangulation than in hangings.

The DOJ’s official death investigation noted that “none of the inmates who were interviewed had any credible information suggesting Epstein’s cause of death was something other than suicide.”

The investigation also concluded that that three interviewed inmates with a direct line of sight into Epstein’s cell door stated that “no one entered or exited Epstein’s cell” after Epstein was locked into his cell the night before.

Laura Havranek's avatar

Great podcast Friday with you and Andrew. Thought I would rewatch the videos to really grasp the depths of the material. And it looks bad to me, and I served in law enforcement, my children served in various military service and bases stateside and overseas Thank you for sharing your expertise. Hegseth, Rubio and taRUMP are just too high on their own supply. And as a military mom and widow their discounting of the sacrifices and glorification of war sickens me. Every soldier, sailor and Marine loves peace, because war is hell

Bob McKeown's avatar

Amen, Laura. And once again thank you and your family members for your service.

XGirl's avatar
Mar 8Edited

little peter is wrong……Correction: British Sub sinks ship 1982 Falkland War. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/2/newsid_2480000/2480241.stm

Mayme's avatar

I’m am hoping China will just tell Trump to crawl back in his hole and that the war is over.

Mike Hammer's avatar

That hole might be exactly what he’s digging to China from the new East wing ballroom.

BF's avatar

Correction, Sir:

It's "World War Epstein" .... his message from the grave is simple -- FAFO.

Mike Hammer's avatar

Yes, because it was the world according to Epstein.