When all is said and done, any elected representative that allowed or enabled this maniac to start and then continue his war of aggression needs to be brought up on charges of war crimes by the ICC and deported to The Hague for trial. We should demand nothing less. Vote out the feckless morons in power and put in new people who promise to do so. Democrat or Republican, these fuckers need to pay.

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we!

Fantastic news! Let’s hope they manage to fulfill those orders before Taiwan runs out of energy reserves, because according to the Taipei Times, they currently only have enough to last until uhh…the end of the month.

Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month

Again, just phenomenal.

Seventeen days in, Iran’s supreme leader is dead, his successor is reportedly wounded and every principal instrument of Iranian power projection – missiles, nuclear infrastructure, air defences, the navy, proxy command networks – has been degraded beyond near-term recovery. … But the strategy – the actual strategy, measured in degraded capabilities rather than cable news cycles – is working.

Hypothetical situation: the Trump administration’s prediction that the Iran war lasts two more weeks proves dead-on accurate, and the US strikes degrade Iranian retaliatory capabilities to exactly zero by April Fools Day. They are reduced to a half a dozen AK-47s and a couple hundred rounds of ammo. Trump declares victory, the US packs up the 5th Fleet and goes home, and everyone makes a ton of money on Kalshi bets.

Now what? As the US stands down, Iran re-arms, and starts lobbing drones at ships in the Strait. Or its neighbors’ oil infrastructure. Or Israel. They drop a couple drifting mines in the Strait just for fun. Nothing requiring too much infrastructure, but everybody’s on eggshells because there’s a chance the Ayatollah will decide to ruin the day of someone in the Gulf.

How can the US respond to the threats to the region, without acquiescing to Iran’s demands? I see at least 3 possibilities. They could ignore it, or they could constantly send materiel and personnel to deal with the lingering threat, or they could invade Iran to permanently subjugate the country. Ignoring it is probably off the table: allowing Iran to dictate the future of the region is pretty obviously contrary to America’s and its allies’ interests. So that leaves the two interventions: low and high. The low intervention leads to a war of attrition: how long is the US willing to burn money and lives to keep Iran contained?

They could also invade Iran, which requires much more manpower, munitions, and logistical support than the slow burn. Expect a protracted conflict in inhospitable terrain with an unfriendly populace (both of which are several times the size of Iraq).

So the question is, how likely is the above scenario? If it is likely, even foreseeable, how on Earth does this war serve US strategic interests? What about the economic effects of all this chaos? Moreover, the US assassinated the leader of a country while engaged in negotiations with that country. Why would anyone consider the US a reliable partner again in the future? Again, unless your strategy is to stir up as much bullshit as possible, what purpose does this war actually serve?

Good. Don’t vote. If you were so stupid/racist/sexist/oblivious to history as to vote for Trump in 2024 you should not be voting at all.

Trump and the Republicans (who only exist as his personal ball-washers to sanewash and rubberstamp everything he does; they are indistinguishable at this point) documented all the policies they were going to pursue in the Project 2025 policy document, which was readily available to read before the election. You were warned about this loudly and repeatedly.

Trump’s behavior is also a known quantity. I suspect you did not magically appear on Earth to vote for him in 2024 having never experienced the reality of his first term, so you also should have had the benefit of knowing what he is like.

You therefore knew (or should have known) what he was like and what he wanted to do. If you knew, congratulations on getting exactly what you voted for. If not, you’re a low-information voter. You shouldn’t be voting at all because you are, at best, blindly picking a choice that everyone else has to live with too. So stay home. Don’t vote. Then at least nobody else has to suffer with the consequences of your ignorance.

I will never get tired of these people twisting themselves into knots trying to avoid saying the painfully obvious reason Trump is in the Epstein files (it’s because he’s a rapist pedophile).

MTG: he’s protecting a foreign government! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mtg-trump-israel-epstein-files-b2866209.html

Massie: he’s protecting the billionaires! https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/massie-100-house-republicans-vote-release-epstein-files/story?id=127568864

Simultaneously I find the constant, insultingly stupid attempts at misdirection to be completely exhausting. They cannot be out of power soon enough.