Not Friday, at 4:47 Eastern Time?
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Peace with Iran would qualify as “unconventional”
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Here is an unconventional idea: The USA should dramatically pursue and expand Solar and Wind power in the USA to reduce oil imports, thus weakening Iran’s (and the rest of the Middle East) income from oil exports.
Lower demand, lower price, less money flows to the ME.
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We (myself included) have been focusing on the desperation conveyed by the Pentagon’s request for “unconventional ideas” and how this message is likely undermine the troops’ confidence in their commanders. There’s another problem, the word “punish.” I have no doubt that combatants sometimes feel the desire to “punish” their enemies and feel that’s what they’re doing when they inflict harm, but a well-disciplined military should not be encouraged to think of punishment as their goal – should, in fact, be strongly discouraged from thinking that way and indulging such feelings. The goal of a well-disciplined military should be to create a situation favorable to their civilian leadership’s diplomatic engagement with the enemy by bringing about the enemy’s surrender or at least the enemy’s willingness to negotiate a resolution to the conflict, whichever of the two alternatives their civilian leaders (the president, but also Congress) prefer.
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Trump was selling, but we need to remember that they were buying. And they were buying even though people were screaming “THIS IS BULLSHIT.” I still don’t know quite how to evaluate that fact or fit it into a narrative that has America as great. Is it really possible for a gaggle of morons to be great, it just seems so unlikely.
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You are really ruining my attempt to cast derision at the idiot.
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Instead of holding quils why are Washington and Lincoln not holding their noses in that picture?
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How to punish Iran
“Make Hegseth Iran’s secretary of defense”
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That would really help the US. They’re not that stupid.
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Fyi:
I don’t give a shit about trump’s golf game and his supposed mastery of it
FUCK TRUMP AND HIS GOLF CART
He cheats at everything including marriage.
And he does not hide it and people do not seem to care. Maybe I am alone but cheating, lying and the money grubbing disgust me in the extreme.
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@darrtown
The null set of shits, eh?
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Iran foreign ministry says there are no talks with the US
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Middle East.
Esmaeil Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, told reporters at a weekly press briefing on Monday that Iran is not currently holding any talks with the US, Reuters reports – contradicting claims made by Donald Trumpon Sunday night that talks with Iran would happen the next day.
Baghaei said that there were no plans to receive a delegation or send an Iranian one, and that Iran’s current focus was on negotiations with Omanover the strait of Hormuz.
“We are now going to reach an understanding on a route acceptable to both sides – neither the northern route nor the southern route – but one that respects the sovereign rights of both sides and safeguards our national interests and security,” he said in an interview with Iranian state television.
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“And nothing is ever resolved anyway.” Nor will it be unless and until American citizens make a decision to notify each other and the rest of the world that Trump, his administration, and the MAGA GOP do not represent who we are.
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Impeachment and conviction thereof please.
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Holdouts for Trump’s attorney general pick say they will vote in favor of his nomination
Republican senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, two key holdouts on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination – now say they will vote to advance him to the full Senate.
The outgoing lawmakers, who have repeatedly clashed with Trump over the past year, said their concerns were resolved after “successful negotiation of a legally enforceable document” that formally ends the $1.8bn “anti‑weaponization fund” and makes clear that Trump and his family will not receive indefinite protection from audits of future tax filings. Both issues had been deal‑breakers for Cornyn and Tillis. In the document Blanche released on Sunday, the acting attorney general did say that the sweeping immunity offered to the president and his family for their past conduct does not change.
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Narrator: the document was not legally enforceable.
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Trump is now ruining the US top to bottom at a brisk pace, but if he actually has the US military invade Iran he will supercharge that utter ruination.
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“Oh, yeah?” says Trump. “Well, you just ask this 9-foot tall rabbit standing next to me whether there are talks with Iran. He’s leading the talks, so he knows what he’s talking about.”
American media: “Our reporters were not able to find the rabbit. Trump officials said the rabbit had stepped away briefly to take a call from Iranian negotiators. ‘Ok, sounds good to us we’ll just report that right away,’ said our reporters.”
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“They just cared about the price of groceries … “ I believe you’re right. Denial is a wonderful thing, especially in relation to death. The number of Covid dead being greater than the number of deaths in all of the wars is but a representation of death, not the thing itself, just as all of our words are but representations of experiences, not the things themselves. The distance they offer, as representations, may keep us from going mad with sorrow. But it also moves experience toward becoming abstract. Abstraction allows denial; we all know death happens to someone else, not me.
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Which is why it will come back after the midterms in all its ugly glory - they’ll pass it before the Congressional term ends.