Lachlan Pirie

Screenwriter, Author of Crime Novel "The Resolution" (JAN 2023), YouTuber + Podcaster (Author on Author Interviews)

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

I made a map of the 77 countries that participated in a mass walkout at the United Nations before Benjamin Netanyahu's speech.

What do you notice?

[Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson]

According to an informed federal official, in the coming months the Trump administration plans to send a total of 40,000 Mark 84 and Blu-117 bombs to the government of Israel. Each bomb weighs 2,000 pounds. This appears to be the largest transfer of conventional explosive ordnance from the United States in modern history.

How big is this shipment? It amounts to 40,000 tons of bombs. For perspective, the largest American air raid of World War Two was the Eighth Air Force’s attack on Berlin in March of 1945. Combined, the 2,023 Allied aircraft involved dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs. That’s 7.5 percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. That same month, March of 1945, the US Army Air Forces began the single most destructive bombing raid in human history, Operation Meetinghouse over Tokyo. More than 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed. By the end of that operation, the US had dropped 1,600 tons of bombs. That’s four percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. World War Two ended five months later, when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The shipment Trump is sending to Israel amounts to more than three times the destructive power of that nuclear explosion. There is no precedent for what the Trump administration is doing.

Nor is there a justification. The government of Israel is not fighting World War Two, or even a war. It is engaged in periodic skirmishes with a guerrilla force in Lebanon, and it is working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza. Neither front requires modern 2,000-pound bombs.

An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile. It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the surface of the sun. Within 100 feet of the explosion, rock melts and human flesh turns to vapor. The bomb collapses apartment buildings and leaves craters thirty-five feet deep. Until the war with Iran, the US military generally avoided using the Mark 84 in urban areas. It kills too many civilians.

For the Netanyahu government, that’s been the upside. In the weeks after October 7, the IDF dropped nearly six hundred 2,000-pound bombs on densely populated areas in Gaza, including on more than 100 officially designated civilian evacuation zones. The slaughter was so grotesque and embarrassing that for a moment the Biden administration paused a shipment of Mark 84s. Those shipments quickly resumed under Trump. Now they’ve accelerated.

It’s hard to overstate the scale of the crime the Israeli government is committing in Gaza. Over the last three years, more than a quarter-million Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces there. The majority of them have been noncombatants: women, the elderly and tens of thousands of children. Many thousands more remain missing, presumably entombed under the rubble of 200,000 collapsed buildings. So far the Israelis have destroyed 92 percent of all homes in Gaza, and 34 of the 36 hospitals. By comparison, the 1945 Allied bombings of Dresden, now acknowledged as a war crime, destroyed about half of the city’s inhabited buildings.

By any definition, what the Netanyahu government has done in Gaza is genocide. The 40,000 new bombs the Trump administration is sending will be used to do the same in Lebanon, and likely in other countries in the region. If you wanted to extend the Iran war into the indefinite future, this is exactly what you’d do.

So far none of this has received public scrutiny. At some point, inevitably, it will be described in media accounts as an “arms sale.” It is not an arms sale. It is a gift, funded by American taxpayers through the Foreign Military Financing program, an arrangement designed to disguise welfare as capitalism: Congress appropriates money to the executive branch, which transfers the cash to Israel to “buy” American-made weapons, in this case from General Dynamics. Politicians claim this is a win for America. Most voters have no idea they paid for it. The bill in this case is about $3 billion. Add that to the $352 billion the US Treasury has transferred to Israel since 1951.

How did this happen? The request for 40,000 new high-explosive civilian-killing bombs originated at the US Embassy in Jerusalem, which is run by Christian Zionist Ambassador Mike Huckabee and his aide David Milstein, who is the stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin. From there it moved to the State Department, where Marco Rubio enthusiastically approved it.

At this point, only four more people need to sign off before the bombs ship to Israel: Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Congressmen Brian Mast and Gregory Meeks, the top two members of the equivalent House committee. All four are committed neocons. Collectively they’ve taken millions from the Israel lobby. In 2015, Brian Mast traveled to Israel to volunteer for the Israeli military. In 2023, Mast showed up in the House of Representatives wearing an IDF uniform.

It’s hard to imagine any of them hesitating before sending more free bombs to Israel. Only public outrage can stop this.

[Biblingo @biblingoapp]

What language did Jesus speak? Most people assume Aramaic.

It is true that the gospels contain several statements where Jesus speaks Aramaic. Such as when He raises Jairus’s daughter from the dead and tells her, “talitha cumi.”

It’s also true that Aramaic had been growing in popularity leading up to the first century when Jesus walked the earth. So it makes sense that He would have spoken Aramaic.

But there’s a crucial false assumption here.

As modern English speakers, we live in a mono-lingual society. And it’s easy to project that reality onto past cultures. But most societies throughout history have been multi-lingual - including Judea in Jesus’ day.

So the question is not what language Jesus spoke, but which languages and when.

There’s good evidence that Jesus spoke both Greek and Hebrew as well as Aramaic and that He used these languages in different contexts throughout His ministry.

Jesus grew up in Nazareth, which was near the capital of the Galilee region: Sepphoris. This city was a hub of commerce - which meant it was heavily Greek influenced. Jesus likely would have visited the city with His father and learned to speak Greek there.

Of Jesus’ conversations in the gospels, at least two were likely in Greek. First, Jesus likely spoke Greek with the Roman centurion whose servant He healed, as Greek was the lingua franca, and it is unlikely the centurion knew Aramaic.

For several reasons, it is also very likely that Jesus spoke Greek with Nicodemus. First, the name Nicodemus is Greek. Second, Nicodemus was an upper-class Jew, making it likely that he spoke Greek on a regular basis. And third, the nuances of their conversation suggest that it was originally in Greek.

So Jesus almost certainly spoke Greek.

It is also likely that He spoke Hebrew and used it regularly in His ministry. Documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bar Kokhba letters, and the Mishnah attest that Hebrew was spoken for religious teaching and everyday use well into the second century AD.

It is probable that Jesus would have taught His fellow Jews in Hebrew, and we find evidence of this in the details of the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings.

Bottom line: as moderns, we tend to assume Jesus would have primarily spoken one language. But most of the world for most of history has been multi-lingual. And 1st century Galilee was no different.

Jesus almost certainly spoke Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic - and He used them on different occasions for different purposes depending on who He was speaking to.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

I can’t believe Republicans are doing this.
Vote NO!
It’s total betrayal.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

The House is scheduled to vote this week on a National Defense Authorization that would integrate our military tech & supply chains with Israel’s.

Today, the Rules Committee will decide whether my amendment to strip section 219 will get a vote.

RT to support the Massie amdt.!

[⚜️New Orleans vs Everybody⚜ @SheDatWeDat]

This is so accurate. I’ve been to two catholic mass funerals and I was tired afterwards 😭😭😭😭

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

I’m dying. 😂

[TheRealMvitaOne @FauzKhalid]

Iran attacks US base in Kuwait.
Iran was underestimated and this arrogance is now backfiring.

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

There’s no coherent argument for releasing millions of pages of Epstein files but not releasing this. Every argument against releasing the congressional sexual misconduct files would also apply to the Epstein files (exposes victims, includes unsubstantiated claims, etc). And yet almost every member of congress voted to release the Epstein stuff. And now the vast majority oppose releasing their own files. Total farce.

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

I can't take the gaslighting, guys. I really can't. Conservatives are now running around saying "Iran has been waging war on us for 47 years." Okay then why didn't any of you call for an attack on Iran at any point until now? Why didn't you make a case for Trump "ending the war, not starting it" until precisely the moment when Trump did it? You and I both know that you are latching onto a talking point you never used until 45 seconds ago. You and I both know that almost every conservative influencer in the business was opposed to war with Iran until just now. And now you're trying to use justifications that stretch back decades. It doesn't make any sense. If you changed your mind, fine. Say so. Explain why. You're allowed to change your mind. I've changed my mind about things. But don't try to rewrite history. Be honest about it. There's too much at stake to play these games.

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

So far we’ve heard that although we killed the whole Iranian regime, this was not a regime change war. And although we obliterated their nuclear program, we had to do this because of their nuclear program. And although Iran was not planning any attacks on the US, they also might have been, depending on who you ask. And although we are not fighting this war to free the Iranian people, they are now free, or might be, depending on who seizes power, and we have no idea who that will be. The messaging on this thing is, to put it mildly, confused.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

.@JDVance and @TulsiGabbard you both need to speak out against the war in Iran.

People are paying attention, very close attention. Silence won’t cut it.

You were both on record repeatedly, publicly, and loudly against going to war with Iran.

Our friend, Charlie Kirk was adamantly against war with Iran.

You cannot be silent.

Americans are dying.

You both know this is not what we campaigned for and this is 100% what we said would not happen.

We said, I said, you said:

NO MORE FOREIGN WARS AND NO MORE REGIME CHANGE.

All we wanted was America FIRST.

This is not it.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

Great Mr President. Good job.
You’re a billionaire and the American people, not the Iranian people, who voted for you are not billionaires.
As a matter of fact many of them are flat out broke, in all time high credit card debt, can’t afford health insurance or car insurance for that matter, and most young people can’t afford to buy a house or even their rent payment. Your generation, the baby boomers, your families were able to thrive on single incomes and now that’s practically impossible for the vast majority of American families. Let alone, imagine being a single mother.
Most of your baby boomer friends and supporters, I’m sure are cheering you the most.
But us younger generations, Gen X (mine), Millennials, and especially Gen Z hate this fucking bullshit.
Because we all know that in 10 years when the baby boomers that have been in charge of ALL of America’s disastrous decisions are retired or passed away, us younger generations will be left with no social security checks because it will have gone bankrupt, over $50 Trillion in debt, and a dollar that won’t be worth shit.
We, as in YOU and me, campaigned on America First.
And this is NOT it.

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

As always I only support military action anywhere, in any context, if it directly serves the interests of American citizens. It’s troubling that the arguments we’re hearing for this war in Iran, including from Trump himself, seem to revolve primarily around “bringing freedom to the Iranian people.” As Americans, the freedom of Iranians is not our responsibility. If a single American life is lost in the service of that goal, it will be a travesty.

What nobody has even come close to sufficiently explaining is how this war will first and foremost directly benefit American citizens. That is a case that needed to have been made clearly and convincingly before this move, and it wasn’t. We’re also told how this will benefit Israel, and I’m sure it will. But Israel is not America. What does it do for America? How does it help us? That needs to be explained to us. And it isn’t “panicking” or demonstrating “disloyalty” to demand those very basic answers about how American tax money, and potentially American lives, are being spent.

We hear about the danger of a nuclear Iran, but that’s odd because we were told that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had already been set back decades. We hear that this war will be over quickly and easily because Iran is powerless, which I hope and pray is the case, and maybe it will be. But that’s odd, too, because if Iran is such a paper tiger then how were they a danger to us in the first place? It seems hard to argue both that Iran is an existential threat to the United States and that we can topple them in 20 minutes with no casualties or negative downstream effects.

Also the political calculation really matters here. A huge majority of American oppose this. That’s just a fact. If it costs Republicans in 26 and 28, then, no matter how things work out in Iran, it will not have been worth it. A free Iran at the cost of Democrat rule here at home is a bad deal. A free Iran for an unfree America would be just about the worst trade of the century.

I’m praying for our great country today.

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

In the 1980s many were certain summer skiing would become a thing.

[Hivista @HivistaSt]

I absolutely love this Christmas String Light.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

Americans are on the brink of financial ruin and here is the state of your two political parties.

Democrats created this financial disaster by pumping trillions into the economy for their own covid lockdown payoffs and drove inflation to 40 yr record highs under Biden. Every Democrat in the House and Senate have voted NO to the CR to fund the government with most Dems voting yes to foreign aid and foreign wars, yet now they are taking the moral high ground over the health care CRISIS they created with Obamacare and ACA tax credits they voted to expire this year.

However my Republican colleagues are all sitting around powdering their white wigs debating the merits of the filibuster and how important it is to maintain full uniparty control while they continue to refuse to use the nuclear option to fund the government themselves.

And Johnson continues to refuse to allow us to go back to work in the House.

Republicans got sweeped in Tuesday’s election, which I fully expected and I’ve been the only Republican talking about affordability for Americans and the health insurance crisis for months and months now, but James Blair says that after the new year they will start talking about domestic policy. I don’t think many of these Americans are going to make it through Christmas.

Meanwhile, Milei got invited to the CPAC convention down at Mar-a-Lago and was dancing on stage in elation of course because he received a $40 billion dollar bail out from America and we got worthless pesos that won’t pay off anyone’s credit card debt.

The White House, who is talking about Christian persecution in Nigeria as a reason to start another foreign war, and is hosting the new Al-Qaeda president of Syria, who persecutes Christians himself.

Meanwhile, everyone, including the US Ambassador, Mike Huckabee ignores the Israeli Christian persecution in Bethlehem and the West Bank, which is the literal birthplace of Christ and Christianity.

I could go on and on.

Democrats have created a financial disaster and the billionaires running the admin can’t gaslight Americans and tell them that everything’s fine.

Because it’s not.

We said America First, and I for one meant it, to the point of America First and ONLY.

I feel like I’m playing on a team that doesn’t want to play and is refusing to win.

Wake up everyone!!!

[Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO @nyunggai]

God I love this! Where are our leaders today?

[Abier @abierkhatib]

Did I jump into a different universe 🤩

I’m clapping like a seal

[Mike Benz @MikeBenzCyber]

Jeffrey Epstein: Ain't No Way No CIA @ChanelRion