honestly I think the best metaphor for this debacle is the Russo-Japanese war:
-idiot ruler with delusions of grandeur
-empire wants to show a middle power whos in charge
-negotiators are idiots
-imperial logistics are all fucked up
-empire surrenders to middle power after defeat
Yes indeed. The smarter thing was to realize this a decade ago. We called it "the Pivot to Asia" back then, and it also involved a very smart plan to move manufacturing out of China and into allied countries. But American voters didn't realize we had a good thing going.
It is funny that some economists were vocally in distress about why a complete closing of the Strait was not having the kind of energy shock they expected and instead of the fundamentals of economics being wrong it was just run of the mill corruption and lying
CBS: The Iranians are saying they're gonna have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund. True or false?
JD VANCE: That's the sort of things they could have access to so long as they honor their end of the obligation
BREAKING: Iran says the US has agreed to permanently hand over the Strait of Hormuz to Iran under their full sovereign authority, with Iran collecting tolls called "service fees" from all commercial ships after a 60-day waiver period. The opening is planned for Friday, after the signing, per Fars.
With pre-war Hormuz traffic at 30,000 vessels and 7.6 billion barrels of oil per year, this could generate $10+ billion in annual revenue for Iran, and comes on top of the $300 billion in reconstruction funds directly sent to Iran.
This also directly contradicts Trump's claim of a "toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz" under no fees.
BREAKING: Netanyahu directly rejects the Lebanon clause of the US-Iran agreement announced by Pakistan, telling Trump the IDF will not withdraw from Lebanon and that Israel does not consider itself bound by the clause, per Maariv.
This is what Elon Musk doesn't want you to see on this platform. This’s what your media won’t report.
Lebanon is being ethnically cleansed in real time.
On Friday evening, the Republican leaders of North Carolina's state legislature dropped a big, unannounced, 36-page omnibus bill stuffed to the brim with new voting restrictions and elections changes.
This thing is a voter suppression wishlist. Just some of its major provisions:
👉 Total ban on encouraging voter turnout: State and county board members are prohibited from any public statement "encouraging or promoting voter turnout in any election"
👉 Grants the Republican State Auditor total discretion to audit all machines, county offices and personnel involved in any election
👉 Reduces campaign finance transparency: the bill significantly raises the dollar thresholds for required reporting of dark money contributions or media expenditures, waiving reporting for the rest
👉 Requires voters to register with a political party a full year before voting in that party's primary election (up from 90 days)
👉 Total ban on any ranked-choice voting in any primary or general election statewide
👉 Strips some overseas voters of their eligibility to vote in any state elections
👉 Partisan staffing: changes up to 25 professional staff at the State Board of Elections from career civil staff to partisan political appointees
👉 Bans paid petition gathering
This bill just dropped last night and may not be online yet (they like to take their time). We got a full draft of the bill here: https://t.co/CMBAsV4Mtw
BREAKING: Senator Tom Cotton has officially proposed a law that could merge Mossad and the CIA forever, with Section 622 of the Intelligence Authorization Bill making it illegal to suspend intelligence sharing with Israel.
There’s something somber about the last living witness to Lincoln’s assassination being a tree that’s now dead. I hadn’t thought about trees as witnesses before.
As a reminder, almost 11 years ago, Jeffrey Epstein took this picture of the world’s first trillionaire.
We need a revolution against the treachery of elites.
This is insane:
• UofM cracks down on and arrests anti-genocide student protesters
• Ann Arbor prosecutor Eli Savit declines to prosecute
• UofM recruits MI AG and Zionist lunatic Dana Nessel to personally prosecute the case—HIGHLY unusual for such low-level charges
• Nessel forced to drop all charges to preempt court finding her unable to fairly prosecute the case due to her bias against Arabs and Muslims as well as her ties to Zionist extremist groups caught attempting to influence the court
• Nessel (a Democrat!) turns to Trump DoJ and Kash Patel to bring felony conspiracy charges against the students
The irony is that CA's vote count takes so long because of stringent verification rules. You know, the very stuff the White House complains don't exist.
If a mail ballot signature looks different from the one on file, the voter has to appear in person to validate it.