Qualified Opinion

Oil and gas, accounting, finance, puns, and economic history. Over-educated, pro-human (anti-environmentalist).

[Vivid.🇮🇱 @VividProwess]

“I’m dedicating this victory to the heroic soldiers of the IDF and to all the ‘Free Palestine…’ people, go fuck yourselves.”

Israeli wrestler Shimon Smotritsky won tonight in the U.S. in a fight and defeated a fighter who refused to shake his hand in front of a booing crowd.

WIN!!! 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱

[Gad Saad @GadSaad]

💯

[Nikos Sotirakopoulos @Nikos_17]

A reminder that FDR had the brilliant idea in Yalta
to practically beg Stalin to get involved in the East.

The result: the Red Army storming Manchuria,
and then handing half of Korea to Kim.

Later Truman abandoned Chiang,
Mao said 'thank you very much', and got China.

The results are still with us today: 45+million dead in Korea and China, generations living in serfdom,
and 2 nuclear threats for the West.

'Pragmatism' sucks, and kills.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@ErlingsTake @beatmastermatt Lol. Manufacturing employment is down bug since liberation day. Just as manufacturing jobs declined after Trump’s tariffs in his first administration. For example, every steel job “saved” resulted in about 60 jobs lost in US manufacturing that uses steel as an input.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@NiohBerg That would be a great funeral to bomb 💣.

[David Keyes @DavidMKeyes]

People forget: By killing Hitler, the allies only radicalized the Nazi party. Also, it created 1,000 new Hitlers. This is obvious. We need to think more strategically about the unintended consequences of killing genocidal tyrants.

[Elan Journo @elanjourno]

Confronting the Iranian regime is way overdue. How we got here, briefly.

Across decades, U.S. appeasement encouraged Iran's Islamic totalitarian regime.

It should have been prime target after 9/11.

1/ The 9/11 Commission reviewed 2.5M pages, interviewed 1,000+ officials — and still missed the fundamental question: who is the enemy?

2/ The answer: Islamic totalitarianism — a movement seeking global rule under sharia, with the Islamic Republic of Iran chief backer, financier, and model.

3/ CARTER (1979): Iranian militants storm the U.S. embassy. Guards are ordered not to fire — to avoid angering the mob. 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, subjected to mock executions and psychological torture.

4/ Carter's response: recruit the PLO as a go-between, offer diplomatic "carrots," rule out military force. The final deal gave Iran $7B in unfrozen funds and zero accountability. Khomeini's lesson: "America cannot do a damn thing."

5/ REAGAN (1983): Iran-backed Hezbollah bombs the U.S. Embassy in Beirut — 63 dead. Six months later, a truck bomb destroys the Marine barracks — 241 servicemen murdered. Iran's fingerprints were all over both attacks.

6/ Reagan's response: fire some inconsequential shells at Syrian forces, then quietly pull the Marines out. He called it a "redeployment." Islamists called it a retreat. Bin Laden later cited Beirut as proof that America wouldn't fight.

7/ Meanwhile, Reagan was secretly arming Iran with missiles — hoping Tehran would help free American hostages in Lebanon. America was actively strengthening its own attacker.

8/ BUSH (1989): Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the murder of novelist Salman Rushdie and his publishers — a public death decree targeting free speech in the West. Bush's response: imply that Rushdie and Khomeini were equally objectionable, then go quiet.

9/ The result: Rushdie's translators were stabbed and murdered. U.S. bookstores were firebombed. The FBI logged 70+ threats in a single month. Washington did nothing. Khomeini had effectively imposed sharia on American soil — and faced no consequences.

10/ CLINTON (1993–2000): The first WTC bombing (treated as a crime), the Khobar Towers bombing (19 Americans killed — Clinton stonewalled the Iran investigation to protect diplomatic outreach), the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (hundreds dead).

11/ Clinton's "retaliation" for the embassy bombings: 70 cruise missiles fired at empty training camps and a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory that turned out not to be a weapons site. Iran, which helped train the bombers, was untouched.

12/ Then the USS Cole: a suicide boat blows a 40x40-foot hole in a U.S. warship, killing 17 sailors. Neither Clinton nor his successor bothered to respond.

13/ The pattern across all four administrations: each attack handled in isolation, the enemy never named, aggression never punished. The "realist" foreign policy framework treated every crisis as a one-off — connecting the dots was considered naive.

14/ Post-9/11, G.W. BUSH evaded the nature of the threat, targeting Iran and Afghanistan, missions subverted by irrational moral ideas.

More: https://t.co/Pv3DcdmrMj

cc @yaronbrook @AynRandInst

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@CryptoHunter589 @ClownWorld Yeah because Iran never murdered Americans and hasn’t threatened to murder as many as they can. Eviscerating our enemies is America first.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@Ross__Hendricks You greatly overestimate the power of our enemies. Where have you been over the last few years? Your tweets are already making you look like an ignorant defeatist. Maybe even an apologist for radical Islam and enemy of the West.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@Ross__Hendricks Unprovoked? Examine the last 47 years of history. This is long overdue justice.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@PeterSchiff It can’t get worse than what is in place. If it is, they too can be wiped out.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@PressSec You mean they state facts, and you have a problem with the truth.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@Mister_OilDaddy @Kasparov63 The purpose of the constitution and division of powers is to restrain a majority from voting away the rights of individuals in the minority. IDGAF what you voted for. If it’s illegal and/or immoral, and tariffs are both, then you can take your vote and shove it.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@HamasAtrocities Yes

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@RepThomasMassie Crushing the Islamist republic is 46 years overdue. Get on with it and make the world a more peaceful place.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@ErikBootsma @davidharsanyi And regulated.

[Norbert J. Michel @norbertjmichel]

One of the most enduring myths from the 2008 financial crisis is that federal regulators were blindsided because all the risky speculation started in the “shadow banking” sector, where there were no regulators.

This tale is basically complete nonsense. Regulators knew, and even blessed most of what was going on. When everything went south, they blamed the free market and grabbed more power.

Now, they're at it again, but the new target is the private equity industry. There hasn't been a crisis, but the goal is the same: Restrict people from doing what they want to do with their own money.

Check out this post for the details.

https://t.co/cGtWffMdOY

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

Trump blocked the opening of a bridge to Canada after Lutnick met with the owners of a competing bridge who have been fighting to monopolize the traffic for themselves.

Pure corruption. https://t.co/ywI150JcUT

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@koshercockney These starving gazans must be packing massive explosive vests under their clothes. In the most unflattering of places.

[Qualified Opinion @OilandGAAS]

@sentdefender Snatching a compromise/defeat from the jaws of victory.