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Tuco

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Everything posted by Tuco

  1. I really, really, really...really, hope we did not figure out how to inflict their anti-aircraft weapons systems with a computer bug. (Like we did with the centrifuges with Stuxnet.)
  2. Go to West Virginia. Solidly blue in registrations (44.7%D to 31.2%R in 2016), but was the largest Trump margin (68.5% to 26.4%) in 2016.
  3. A poem by Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers: (Ernie is an old school, civil rights activist who has spent the last ~60 years pissing of white people in Nebraska.)
  4. I'm not even clear on what difference they are trying to make. It was a vague threat with vague goals.
  5. So Pelosi looks at sources that outside of her echo chamber? Do you understand the difference?
  6. It also shows a Crusader. It's not accidental.
  7. I get his practical rationale, I am just curious how that would be argued in front of a judge. I figured Bolton was the toughest of targets for a subpoena because as the national security adviser, he was obviously involved in national security and involved in direct consultation with the President. Guys like Perry would have a much harder time making those claims. But when Bolton says he would be willing to testify for the Senate, that rationale seems to go out the window. Maybe the judge still protects him on those argument, because of the precedent, but I don't know how his lawyers argue it in good faith.
  8. (deleted for being too slow)
  9. I'd be curious in knowing Bolton's legal defense for believing it would be appropriate to adhere to a Senate subpoena, but not a House subpoena.
  10. In this particular case, it's because no one has any fucking idea what the plan is. When no one knows what is going on, it's really easy to make mistakes, and difficult for anyone to quality check it before it gets sent out. Somebody sent it, and that somebody thought it was the plan. Because it's anyone's guess what the plan is.
  11. Have we talked about how the White House turned over emails that redacted the following sentence about continuing the hold: I mean, everyone knew the hold came from the President. His apologists claim it came from him due to concerns corruption or Europeans not doing their part. It's horseshit, but that is supposed to be his defense. Yet, they still blacked it out, because they don't really know what his defense is, and they have no problem obstructing justice. They don't even have to be good at crime to get away with it. They just need a complicit Party.
  12. This would be a good time to remind folks that the Republicans have won the popular vote in a Presidential election once in the last 30 years. And that was during the height of a war. Democracy is not something that helps them retain power.
  13. You can really tell how well thought out this was: Iran restarting its nuke program, we tried to stop the Iraqis from voting to kick us out..and failed, the President threatening to bomb cultural sites in violation of international law, and now we are threatening to sanction a country we are trying to rebuild. Well done Republicans. Making America Great.
  14. Do you want to provide a link to that list? I'm honestly curious. (And high value targets are not necessarily terrorists.)
  15. I assume you are referring to the 15 year old executive order 13382. This was an executive order which designated several individuals, organizations, and banks for "providing support for terrorists." It was out of the treasury department, and was sanctioning individuals, not claiming that we would kill them on sight. Government Fact sheet on it has this quote. This is very similar to numerous Treasury sanctions which have targeted many people across the globe, including Putin's allies. We aren't going to kill any of them whenever an opportunity presents itself. The FBI maintains a list of most wanted terrorists. Suliemani was not on it. If you review some of those terrorists, you may be able to understand there is a difference between hostile government officials who we typically sanction, and actual wanted terrorists we would take immediate actions to kill or detain, given the opportunity. Suliemani was in Iraq on the invitation of their prime minister in order to help diffuse tensions, and we assassinated him. Stop normalizing this shit. As far as plater charges, we lost 12 servicemen in Iraq in 2019. 8 of them were to non-hostile incidents, one to small arms fire, and three to suicide bomber. The only reason to worry about Iran supplying weapons in Iraq is if there was an escalation, or as an excuse for revenge. Revenge is completely idiotic, particularly in a region that we invaded on false pretenses. Genocide would be the only way to end the conflict if we are basing our policies on revenge from the last 20 years. Edit - looking at the website closer, in IRAQ itself, we lost four troops in 2019, one of them to small arms fire. The site was listing folks in Syria, Kuwait, SA, and even Germany.
  16. There is no reason to think Iran wouldn't haven't supported killing US troops. There is nothing unusual, or particularly immoral, about engaging in proxy wars. We are currently impeaching the President for holding up weapons to Ukraine, which they were using to kill Russian troops and Russian supported militias. If Russia were to do a missile strike on Congress, or the Pentagon, or the OMB - we'd all realize that is a next level escalation, and nowhere a proportional response. But Americans have been trained to believe that there is something magical about killing Americans, that any response is justified. It's not. We send troops to war knowing that people will try to kill them. Then we believe it's an immoral act when they are actually killed.
  17. Um, It’s the Republicans who want make sure that trans women (identifies as woman, has a penis) are using the men’s room. It’s also Republicans who really don’t understand what they really want, but are just angry that trans women exist.
  18. That’s actually what Book of Esther reference is about. She was Jewish, but didn’t have any direct power. She manipulated the non-Jewish king into killing the enemies of the Jews. Trump is the King, not Esther. Nobody believes Trump is religious, they just know they can manipulate him into killing their enemies. If he knew anything about the Bible, and wasn’t a complete idiot, he’d realize it’s not very flattering.
  19. I think it's widely accepted that Iran helped certain factions in the insurgency, and that there were quite a few Shi'ite insurgents. The neocons went into Iraq to knock off nominally-Sunni Saddam, and predicted that this wave of freedom would inevitably spread to Iran. Maybe some Iranians applauded the toppling of Saddam, and maybe some were concerned about the predictions it might have had for Iran, but you can pretty much guarantee that after Saddam's government fell, they all wanted to make damn sure they were part of filling that vacuum. Iran needed the US out to better fill that vacuum, and they engaged in a proxy war against the US to make that happen. (Which was entirely predictable.) But who the fuck cares. You don't end wars, proxy wars or otherwise, by continuing the violence after things have settled down. And Iran was hardly the only actor in the violence. Currently al-Sadr's political party is leading the coalition that controls the Iraqi parliament. He previously was a leading force behind the Mahdi army who killed a lot more Americans than Iran did. Are we going to kill him - a major leader in a duly elected party? You know, because "eye for an eye" is such sage advice in ending Mideast violence. And what about leaders of Sunni militants? Are they next on the list? I'm worried about what happens next with Iran. But I am even more baffled about what they thought would happen with Iraq. We just pushed them into Iran's arms. Any benefit we think we may have gotten from the Iraq War is officially gone. Those 600 American soldiers we claim the Iranians killed? We just made damn sure they died for nothing. So fucking stupid, and based on this idea that we have the right to settle old scores from a war we were starting to put behind us.
  20. I wonder how often she regrets learning English.
  21. Agree with Sean T. More House members would make the system more accessible, and reduce the undemocratic impact of the electoral college.
  22. I've gotten into discussions with gun nuts, and challenged them on whether they think semi-auto AR-15 style rifles would be much help against an Abrams tank. The response is generally pointing to places like Iraq, where an insurgency can survive despite massive imbalances in weaponry. Their hypothetical goal is not to defeat the government; it's to up the pain level to affect the government's actions. This is also known as terrorism. I don't think the vast majority of Trumpster gunnuts will do so if he loses. They envision themselves as the heroes in a Red Dawn inspired dystopian fantasy land. But with that basic mindset, it won't take much of a mental health spiral, or further radicalization, to drive some of them to do it. And when Trump pushes the illegal immigrant voting narrative, it justifies their actions as defending real democracy rather than attacking it. The thing I always found so crazy about the Oklahoma City bombing was that the terrorist thought their actions would spark a revolution, as the people stood up to their government oppressors. That kind of crazy only works if you think democracy has already been subverted.
  23. Considering the number of Republicans Congressmen and Senators who have parroted Russian propaganda on TV, I have a hard time believing that’s the reason. My guess it’s the optics of meeting with someone who may get arrested soon on FARA and campaign finance charges. They will likely still repeat whatever Rudy claims, but they are going to quote conservative media, not Rudy.
  24. They aren’t going to attack hard targets. They are going to attack population bases they see as representative of the enemy, like Walmarts in El Paso. They are terrorists, not a revolutionary army.
  25. Do you think that five percent would punish Democrats at the polls? If not, then the five percent are clearly wrong.
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