I saw a couple weeks ago on YT an interview with a wheat farmer in Kansas. Between tariffs and counter tariffs as well as the destruction of USAID the bottom had fallen out of the wheat market – literally billions of bushels a year were being bought by that program. He was calculating whether he should harvest his crop and sell it at a loss or take the cheaper route of just plowing it under.
He was worried that either path might lead to the loss of his farm, that had been in his family for generations. Yet when asked he said he would vote for Trump again, given the opportunity.
Donald is ruining their lives----but that’s fine, since he’s also ruining the lives of those they hate and resent. (Non-white people; LGBTQ; educated people.)
Exactly that. It’s not self interest that motivates these people, it’s bigotry and the desire to hurt and kill others. They put their sadism above their own welfare, or life.
And Trump is hurting lots of people, so they still support him. He is their knife plunged into the guts of America and the world, and they’ll keep supporting him as long as he keeps twisting that knife.
Well, when the alternative would be to vote for someone who will suck the blood from newborn infants before sending their corpses to Mars for storage until they can be chopped up and put on a pizza …
(We can point fingers and laugh, but very few — I’m tempted to say none — are totally safe from indoctrination. And when said indoctrination, like a farm, has been in the family for generations, it’s particularly potent.)
“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”
It was interesting to read how the Chinese flagged ships sailed right through. You might wonder if they have a deal. Well, what does China want? Oil. What could Iran use? Missiles. Does China have any?
The rest of the short article’s quoting of the felon is a master class in the felon’s “weave” of nonsense. (Why does it make me laugh someonne with his hair likes the word weave?)
Today, under the modern laws of war, specifically the 1907 Hague Convention , it is a war crime to declare that no quarter will be given. Hegseth is in a position where he ought to know this and ought to walk that one back fast as he is right now a war criminal.
The {insert pejorative of your choice here} really does want this to be a forever war.
Of course this can’t be true. If it were, Iran would’ve already informed the press–the international press, not theirs–would be stating what those terms were.
But, check this next part out.
Wide-ranging? Someone forgot how to spell rambling, evidently.
And the master strategists and political observer himself had this to say about Iran’s new supreme leader.
{Insert a different pejorative of your choice here} is really out of touch. Or tetched.
Just for fun? Yeah, let’s keep on committing them thar war crimes.
He ought to know better, but likely doesn’t. Didn’t a congressperson tell him once during a congressional hearing that he’s the most unqualified person for the job ever?
It’s his new schtick: spontaneous interviews with surprise callers. His number is now widely known and he sometimes answers the phone and rambles. Sometimes he does not. He enjoys being “unpredictable”, that is his version of the mad man theory. Petty as usual:
Hello. You have reached the personal line of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America.
For service in English, press 1. For service in any other language, press 8."
[Presses 8. Click. Calls back, and presses 1.]
If you are a foreign leader who is calling to praise President Trump, press 1. If you are a foreign leader who would like to negotiate better terms on tariffs, press 2. If you are a foreign leader whose country is interested in being annexed by the United States, press 3. To prove that you are an American patriot by donating money to President Trump directly, press 4. If you are anybody else, stay on the line, and your call will be attended to momentarily.
Of course, he should know better, and there’s no excuse for ignorance at this level of government. There are still rules of war. He can’t even say, "Oh, I just thought that Led Zeppelin song ‘No Quarter’ was cool. The song is about the Viking era, where a message absolutely must be delivered.
“No Quarter” casts out the Rules of War: Hague, Geneva, mainly because if soldiers know there is no surrender possible, they will fight even more to the death.
If a corporal can say, “The Director for the Department of Shamrock Socks (last year) said I could do it, well, after shooting those cowards who surrended I bayonetted everyone ten times,” it is not his fault.
ETA: It must be in the handbooks, yet yes it is the soldier’s fault for disobeying an illegal order. Hopefully the sergeants on the field walk dumbass’ orders back to the soldiers/marines themselves.
As I understand it, historically Americans have de facto immunity for war crimes because realpolitik. Is there any sense that that is changing, or are we all just more annoyed about it than usual?
I don’t think this immunity for alleged war crimes commited by US politicians is going to change any time soon. Only the USA can put the responsible politicians on trial, and SCOTUS is where the buck stops (which, according to current doctrine and jurisprudence, is then gilded and donated to POTUS).
But you have to blame someone! The Economist (gift link) suggests MAGA may be about to blame Netanyahoo. The article also claims that by abandoning the policy of prioritizing bipartisan support for Israel over short term gains Bibi has alienated the Democrats and put Israel’s long term survival at risk.
The way they state it, it sounds plausible to me. Plausibility, of course, is not certainty. But if Israel loses the support of the Democrats and of MAGA simultaneously, the consequences are unpredictable.
Perhaps Bibi will not get the immunity he craved so much that he made a pact with the devil Ultra-Orthodox?
