no, i didn't know that the June 2019 US Politics thread was nasty

obv i'm very skeptical of anything coming from the trump administration's claims. but people coming out saying 'false flag' (without evidence) are just as silly as those who immediately blamed iran (without evidence).

the reason people think this is because it doesn't make a lot of sense for Iran to just randomly do this right now.

We can’t even provide food and medicine to our own people. We also cannot seem to process the refugees coming into our own southern border—the system is apparently “overtaxed.” The concept of a war with a country of 80 million is so wtf

I agree carne asada. It makes zero sense, especially given abe’s presence in iran yesterday. The islamic republic sucks in many ways but they’re usually not irrational actors in this sense. But who knows—even if they did it i want a diplomatic solution

Trump just claimed Pelosi made a "fascist" statement

I mean fine

I’m more worried about the possibility of a war that would cost maybe millions of lives than an old man being a jerk

i understand why people are skeptical that iran did it - like i said, i'm right there with you. what i'm criticizing is the immediate leap to "FALSE FLAG!", which is just as ridiculous when everyone lacks evidence

I was also listening to this podcast and they discussed what a fragile security situation the gulf states are in. kuwait in particular gets all its water from desalinization plants that can be easily blown up. we'd have to do daily airlifts of water to avoid the entire population dying of thirst.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/radio-war-nerd-26939754

the US intelligence community faces a very high burden of trust for reasons that should be fairly obvious

Iran could have bombed my apartment building and i wouldn’t support a war led by trump and bolton

someone just tell me to stop if i'm missing the point, but there's a big difference between not trusting the US intelligence community (which, yeah, duh!) and "false flag!"

definitely a crank-y position but it's not as though it's totally without precedent

I hate conspiracy theories but something about this seems off

best thing to do is pretend it's 1985 and there's no pressure to immediately come up with a theory less than 48 hours after it happened and the evidence is just starting to bubble up

whoa, husker du has a new album out, sick
wait, reagan is president, fuck?
invest in apple!

wish i could bomb oil tankers

I’m more worried about the possibility of a war that would cost maybe millions of lives than an old man being a jerk

I am afraid these two things may be inextricable

looks like mnuchin has delayed the design of the new $20 bill with harriet tubman to 2025, so that trump won't have to see his favorite president andrew jackson replaced with a black woman even if he gets reelected

trump has been treated more unfairly than any president

ultimately war boils down to a bunch of old men being jerks

The best possible outcome is still for Trump to die in office before November 2020. Because if he wins re-election, we're fucked, and if he loses, we have to put up with him calling into Fox & Friends for an hour every morning - and the press covering it like it matters - for the next 20 years, or until solar flares melt all our satellites and there's no more TV.

Official White House graphic:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9CIXhAWkAAhWQb.jpg

who is the head of the Joint Chiefs right now? anyone we've heard of?

if he loses, we have to put up with him calling into Fox & Friends for an hour every morning - and the press covering it like it matters - for the next 20 years, or until solar flares melt all our satellites and there's no more TV.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Friday, June 14, 2019 10:24 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark

oh shit i hadn't thought about this

Yeah, you know that thing where ex-presidents kinda fade away from public life and you don't really hear a whole lot from them once they're out of office? Get ready for that to be a thing of the past.

am sure Pres Ivanka will find a role for him in her 2040 admin

In this scenario, the USA plays the Ancient Mariner and Trump plays the role of dead albatross hung around the USA's neck.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9CIXhAWkAAhWQb.jpg

wtf. does trump have a sense of humor about himself now?

is this seriously a white house graphic?

yeah. trump retweeted it from the whitehouse twitter page.

pic.twitter.com/c40BQpZFtW

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 14, 2019

It likes like a Nascar rally car

Why is the president fucking a flag?

its a metaphor

ha like Trump is able to grasp why everyone else thinks that image is funny/awful

all he cares about is that it is effective because it centers all the attention on himself

the flag likes it

when you're a star they let you do it

he's Bidening Old Glory

Ragging Anoe

Lots of people sharing this, no idea who this person is, she seems a little too close to resistance grifter types so I’m a little wary of sharing it as gospel truth, but:

IF YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT TRUMP IS DOING AT THE BORDER, you need to read and share this thread. @jacobsoboroff @JuliaEAinsley please read this.

I have just gotten off the phone with a friend who is a legal volunteer in Border Patrol facilities.

Don't look away.

1/

— Elizabeth C. McLaughlin (@ECMcLaughlin) June 13, 2019

Shouldn’t there be reporters all over the border right now?

she seems a little too close to resistance grifter types

yeah. whatever facts she's presenting there are dragged down by her vibe, which practically shouts 'propaganda'.

I know the topic has moved on, but commercial ships are equipped with radar and sonar devices, the EXACT purpose of which is to detect things in the dark.

Interesting. But only patriotic proud American commercial ships, right?!

I really couldn't give a fuck if Iran threw shitty bombs at a NON US tanker. although I guess now the word is they were trying to hit a US drone which I guess is...provacative, but also, who gives a fuck? What if Iran had drones flying off the East Coast? Wouldn't we shoot them down?

I need thousands of American 23 yr olds to protect my freedom of speech by murdering Iranian civilians because a Japanese oil tanker got attacked 8000 miles from America.

— rob delaney (@robdelaney) June 14, 2019

last two posts otm

Any nation has the recognized right to shoot down hostile aircraft overflying its airspace, including within its 12 nm territorial waters. I have no doubt that US drones have in the past overflown Iranian territory.

Would the average US citizen recognize that Iran has a right to defend its sovereign territory? As my parents' generation used to say, "eh, go tell it to the marines". That's just how we empires roll.

Blockbuster story buried in this NYT report.

Pentagon, intelligence officials fear they cannot trust Trump enough to brief him fully on new US cyber operation against Russia for fear he will "countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials" as he did before with Russians. pic.twitter.com/BgSF3zi8nm

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) June 15, 2019