FIRST ROUND KNOCKOUT! 🤛

Incredible result for him and NY, and I hope this signs the death knell of Cuomo’s career. Step off, creeper.

IAEA Director General’s Introductory Statement to the Board of Governors

…we must return to the negotiating table and for that allow IAEA inspectors… to go back to Iran’s nuclear sites and account for the stockpiles of uranium, including, most importantly, the 400kg enriched to 60%.

The Board should be aware of a letter sent to me by Foreign Minister Dr Abbas Araghchi on 13 June in which he mentions that Iran will “adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials”.

So we went from Iran almost 100% cooperating with the JCPOA, to Trump throwing out the deal, permitting an Israeli first strike, to enriched material loose inside of a nation we just attacked…

I don’t ever, fucking ever, want to hear a Republican talking about any degree of Democrat foreign policy failures. Jfc, how does he bungle the crisis - the crisis he created - so called completely?

Ahh. “Why don’t these ingrates appreciate what they’re given?” cool, keep blaming voters. Your 1-2-E-Z electoral strategy has no issues with circular reasoning, yesss no reason to develop further

Their universal suffrage will keep ignoring your demands for loyalty. Voting is transactional. Give them what they asked for. Or don’t I guess…? The Whig party refused to change too, and look how they turned out

Agree wholeheartedly. It’s why I hold the term ‘journalist’ as an honorific, and don’t apply that to easily 95% of the people who work in news media. Reporter, sure. But a journalist speaks truth to power, knowing that that power figure may retaliate. A real journalist risks being assassinated with a car bomb for investigating a global money laundering ring, not invitations to state banquets, or ‘embedded live’ with government troops whilst accepting the censor.

Like I said, find a journalist with a good SubStack and support the news and analysis you find valuable. Find somewhere that tells you the what and the why, instead of a story.

How much of that was accessible before social media though? Unless you went looking, Israel generally was a pretty sanitized package on the media landscape, or was framed within the “well we were attacked first” narrative that contextually requires ignoring the prior grievances and violence

I feel you’re missing the point I’m making; Obama did have legislative victories yes. Did usher in an economic recovery from the precipice and a (relatively) speaking soft landing. But what fundamentally changed in healthcare? Especially for the low propensity and/or information voter? Nothing from their perspective, unfortunately. The reality delivered did not match the marketing, and though childish and petulant the reaction may be because of real issues like thin majorities or constitutional limits on power, that is the perception. And that is all that matters.

I don’t see Trump’s rise as being caused by his unique policy stances, white nativism, or better electoral strategy than the Democrats. He’s mediocre-to-awful, but has no institutional fealty or cogent ideology which is what makes him uniquely suited to the current populist vibe. Trump is a bomb that voters sent to blow up the established order in Washington, and in 2016 they got what they asked for. The palace coup that is MAGA, ate the Republican Party from the inside out, within a single four year cycle. Now you’re seeing the base souring on him as his second term has has been co-opted by capital and power structures, and is abandoning the ‘maverick outsider’ policies like “no new wars” or “I want to sell off the national parks to foreign nations”.

2. Let me introduce you to group known as the ‘Obama-Obama-Trump’ voters.

Confusing on the face of it no? How can someone vote for Barack twice, and then pull the lever for Trump? And the map is not clear either; counties in New England, the Rust Belt, southwest, and northeast. All over the country, red and blue states. So what happened?

• These 206 counties cast 7.5 million votes in 2016, which accounts for 5.5 percent of all votes cast in the election.
• Between 2012 and 2016, the Democratic popular vote margin declined by 2.1 million votes. Even though these 206 counties make up only 5 percent of the total votes cast, they accounted for 51 percent of that decline.

Low propensity voters, now disillusioned with politics. These are the people who got sold a vision of hope and change after the Great Recession in 2007-2008, and while yes things changed, not in a fundamental way. They still drive on crumbling roads to take their kids to the same underfunded schools. Still watch their taxes fund overseas wars, for nebulous ‘foreign policy’ reasons that aren’t clear. Still paying out the ass for their dialysis care. Watching standards of living regress around them, knowing their kids will be worse off regardless of a college degree.

You see, there’s a part 3 that you’re forgetting that needs to happen, otherwise another opportunist grifter can slide in with false promises and spam-abuse the populism cheat code:

3. Deliver results for the people who voted for you - or don’t be in power when it goes bad

Automatic translation of Knesset member’s and regular Israeli’s tweets has been radically eye opening for me. Kinda hard to hold the view of ‘well, Bibi is a monster but he’s the main one pushing this bloodshed’ when you can factcheck genocidal statements in real time, and see the actions try to meet their rhetoric

It’s access journalism. Trump is just more overt about it, but each admin does it. Biden staffers refused to field questions around his acuity, Trump tried to kick out the AP from the White House Press Pool for running actual news instead of fellating him, Obama’s admin refused to honestly talk about the growing drone war, the Bush jr team chided any ‘where WMD’ reporters, Clinton…

If you say mean things or are critical of your subject, they tend to remember that and don’t volunteer information to your outlet - costing your boss exclusives and headlines, and thus ad revenue. I’m pretty sure Ted Rafael Cruz is never going to sit down for a 1:1 with Tucker Carlson again after he got the steel chair. White supremacist shitbag as Carlson may be, he actually did a journalism, didn’t let Cruz lie, and challenged him on the topic, and Cruz was shown to be lacking.

There is no actual journalism to be found among the main headlines, just repackaged press releases and barebones reporting devoid of context that might actually inform readers. Find an investigative reporter that deals with a topic/region you care about and follow their SubStack, or wade into Telegram and filter out the propaganda as you are able.

I swear, smokers in Europe have atrocious social graces with no concept of personal space. Even at the busiest and most cramped cafes, they will light up at the table with you or standing next to a doorway, and then act like you’re the problem if you’re annoyed or upset about second hand smoke. Beer gardens and outdoor seating almost universally include a carcinogenic haze, it just ruins the meal/drink imo to be tasting the air between bites

At least in America the social stigma is strong enough where they scurry off to their opium den smoking area and get their nicotine hit with their brethren. Go in peace friend, you do you over there to y’all’s lungs

Respectable bipartisan

Kicks over gigglebox every time 🤣

Oh cmon, look at how hard Donny is trying to make a peace happen, he’s even saying mean things about Israel now. “No new wars”

I’m not saying you have to forget what they did or advocated for, directly or indirectly, but ffs if someone is genuinely struggling with a belief/ideology, would you rather offer them a soft landing into a much more normal and moderate position, or that they get burned publicly and are lost forever to the echo chambers?

Do we ostracize the people who may be on the boundary of genuine evolutionary self-discovery, and exploit their moment of public vulnerability for what - smug hubris for the in group who were always on the right side? Or do you accept the Klansman’s contrition and disarm that hate via genuine dialogue, and maybe potentially you too might understand their base motivations that got hijacked by political grifters. And maybe in the future their problems aren’t ignored and don’t grow to the point where it becomes a political wedge issue…?

Or y’know don’t; farm those internet karma points. Post that hot take, then shy away from the follow up dialogue and comments. Block the people you mildly disagree with, whilst chiding everyone else’s echo chamber. Pontificate without praxis in friendly spaces. Downvote the dissenter, instead of dissecting their ideas. I know I’m guilty too and it’s hard to keep yourself in check - but it’s essential to keeping both yourself intellectually honest, and your arguments firmly based in reality.

Colonel: You’re reading too much into things.

Rosemary: That’s right, Jack, you’re tired.

Raiden: …

Colonel: Raiden, don’t waste your time thinking unnecessary thoughts. Invest all your energy instead in carrying out your duties.

I have such little hope for the future given the fusion of generative AI and technology advancing faster than our brains can adapt to changing society and conditions. Pretty soon deepfakes are going to be impossible to discern, and then we’ll truly be in a ‘post-truth world’ where nothing can be independently verified

As you’ve said, they’ve had a track record of power competition and want their sphere of influence in the region, but repeatedly have shown refrain towards other nations during times of escalation.

Iran had (/has?) a chemical weapons program after the Iran-Iraq war, and guess what? There never was a VX nerve gas attack on Tel Aviv. I’m not remotely concerned with them using a nuke offensively, because they’ve exercised restraint repeatedly when they did have other weapons of mass destruction. And they’ve proven they have the capability to get past Israel and allied missile defense, so it’s not a capability gap either

All this hand wringing over “they cannot have a bomb under any circumstances” is unspoken MAD calculus - because then Israel would be on a level playing field as far as ultimate escalation and regime security, and that’d be intolerable for Bibi/the US’s/Gulf State plans for the region.

It’s literally his MO either through incompetence or hubris, he consistently plants landlines for both himself and others:

• Crash out of the JCPOA despite Iranian compliance and the EU trying to maintain the deal without the US, setting the stage for the current crisis
• Completely disregard the Palestinian question in the Abraham Accords, signaling to Hamas(/Iran) that the window is closing and soon the whole Gulf will be onboard with permanent Israeli domination of Palestine
• Give the Taliban whatever they want in the Doha Accords, but in a timeline that forces it to be the next President’s problem
• Publicly declare he’ll solve Ukraine-Russia in 100 days… signaling the limits of his patience, and that Putin only needs to delay, delay, delay
• “I’ll make a decision in two weeks on Iran”

FYI the people who run that site are fairly alt-right chud - not like “your local HVAC guy has problematic opinions” chud, but “unusual obsession with Rhodeisa” and “unapologetically collaborates with apartheid South Africa era government goons” chud.

African decolonization is a really interesting portion of Cold War history, but tbh the Congo, Angola, or Eritrea are more interesting than ‘those brave white men defending civilization’ narrative that are baked into minority rule states

Khalil told reporters he was looking forward to returning home to spend time with his infant son, who was born while his father was detained. “I can actually hug him,” Khalil said.

🥹

While the conditions that led to him missing his son’s birth were absolutely cruel and unnecessary, I am glad the family is reunited. A better outcome than for may, unfortunately

While I’d like to see the Iranian people not be subject to Israeli ‘acceptable civilian deaths’ calculus and have their country cucked like Syria/Lybia, I’m also not hype on their government leaders getting that same MAD protection as well, because they absolutely don’t deserve it

Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction…

The left side is the lifestyles people sell to you in a futile effort to ‘beat the grind set’ required by “line goes up, forever” capitalism.

The right side is min-maxing your output to actualize your rewards in that system, at the cost of your lifespan.

The only winning move is not to play.