🖖🏻🖖🏻Chris B🖖🏻🖖🏻

Life long learner...loving Star Trek since the late 1900’s!

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

i just had andrew and tristan tate arrested in miami for wearing these outfits

[🖖🏻🖖🏻Chris B🖖🏻🖖🏻 @cjonn24]

Do you remember when you joined X? I do! #MyXAnniversary

[🖖🏻🖖🏻Chris B🖖🏻🖖🏻 @cjonn24]

FIFA- fixed it for Argentina

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:

Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.

You won’t.

You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster. Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out.

That is not who we are.

My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.

For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.

I no longer believe that.

Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.

And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts.

That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena.

Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.

Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.

Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next?

We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.

So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.

You won’t.

The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.

That is the only definition that matters.

[PoliticsGirl @IAmPoliticsGirl]

This is excellent.

[Xavier Becerra @XavierBecerra]

I've spent 35 years fighting for California. @TomSteyer spent that time:

Investing $90 million in private prisons that cage migrants.

Building a bank that preyed on working people.

Funding coal companies, then hiding the profits offshore.

Getting sued by employees for wage theft.

Now he wants to spend $150 million to buy the governor's office. California deserves a fighter. Not a billionaire trying to buy his way in.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

#Peace is not something we must invent: it is something we must embrace by accepting our neighbor as a brother or sister. We do not choose our brothers and sisters: we must simply accept one another! We are one family, inhabiting the same home: this wonderful planet that ancient cultures have cared for over millennia. #ApostolicJourney #Cameroon

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth. #ApostolicJourney #Cameroon https://t.co/bKteFZ3iWE

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Absurd and inhuman violence is spreading ferociously through the sacred places of the Christian East, profaned by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business, with no regard for people’s lives, which are considered at most collateral damage of self-interest. But no gain can be worth the life of the weakest, children, or families. No cause can justify the shedding of innocent blood.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.

[Michael Okuda @MikeOkuda]

Happy First Contact Day to those who celebrate!

[TrekMovie.com @TrekMovie]

"My god. They're really from another world."
--Zefram Cochrane

Happy First Contact Day!

#StarTrek

[Trek Central @TheTrekCentral]

🖖 Happy First Contact Day #StarTrek Fans!

April 5th 2063, is officially the day of First Contact between Humans and Vulcans.

🎉 How are you celebrating today? Are you watching a Star Trek episode/movie/series?

TELL US!
#FirstContactDay

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

The WSJ reports that Trump is considering a small attack to force Iran to agree to his nuclear deal, and if Tehran refuses, escalate the attacks until Tehran either agrees or the regime falls.

Here’s why this won’t work.

First of all, the “deal” Trump has put forward entails Tehran completely giving up its nuclear program in return for no NEW sanctions, but no actual sanctions relief. This is, of course, a non-starter for Iran.

There are hardly any more sanctions the US could impose on Iran. And the current level of sanctions is suffocating the economy. Accepting this deal would not enable Iran to escape its economic dead end, but would only prolong the economic decay while depriving it of the nuclear leverage it believes it needs to free itself from existing sanctions.

Second, Trump also tried the idea of a smaller attack, with the Iranians responding symbolically by striking an empty US base back in January. Tehran refused and made clear that any attack would be responded to forcefully. Trump may hope that with a much larger strike force in the region, Tehran will reconsider its response.

But it is difficult to see why Tehran would, since caving to this military threat likely will only invite further coercive demands, beginning with conventional military capabilities such as its missile capabilities. That is Iran’s last remaining deterrent against Israel. Without this deterrent, Israel would be more inclined to attack Iran to cement its subjugation of Iran, or alternatively move to collapse the theocratic regime altogether, Tehran fears.

Thus, capitulating to Trump’s “deal” would not end the confrontation, but only make Tehran more vulnerable to further attacks by Israel or the US.

Thirdly, since the US strategy, according to the WSJ, is to escalate until Tehran caves, and since capitulation is a non-option for Iran, the Iranians are incentivized to strike back right away at the US. The only exit Tehran sees is to fight back, inflict as much pain as possible on the US, and hope that this causes Trump to back off or accept a more equitable deal.

In this calculation, Iran would not need to win the war (militarily, it can’t); it would only have to get close to destroying Trump’s presidency before it loses the war by: 1) closing the Strait of Hormuz and strike oil installations in the region in the hope of driving oil prices to record levels and by that inflation in the US; and 2) strike at US bases, ships, or other regional assets and make Trump chose between cormpomise or a forever war in the region, rather than the quick glorius victory he is looking for.

An extremely risky option for Iran, but one that Tehran sees as less risky than the capitulation “deal” Trump is seeking to coerce Iran to accept.

None of this, of course, serves US interest, has been authorized by Congress, enjoys the support of the American people, enjoys the support of regional allies (save Israel), is compatible with international law, or answers the question: How does this end?

[🖖🏻🖖🏻Chris B🖖🏻🖖🏻 @cjonn24]

@mercnews ¡Fue excelente! It was great!

[🖖🏻🖖🏻Chris B🖖🏻🖖🏻 @cjonn24]

@RobertPicardo @jondelarroz Doctor, I know you miss Voyager’s and Prodigy’s crew. I can see it. I think we all can see it. Will we find out more about them?

[Michael Harriot @michaelharriot]

Oh, they understand the question; they're just laughing at how dumb it is.

But since you asked, I actually know the answer.

Now, I don't want to misquote you, so here is the specific question you asked:

A thread.

[Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 @cmclymer]

A few hours after midnight, while America and (mostly) the rest of the hemisphere were sleeping, the U.S. military conducted missile strikes on targets in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

According to Anatoly Kurmanaev of The New York Times, explosions were witnessed at the La Carlota military airbase and Fuerte Tiuna, which is basically the headquarters of Venezuela’s defense establishment.

A few hours later, Trump posted this on Truth Social:

"The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Official details on the operation are unsurprisingly scarce, but at this hour, Trump admin officials are claiming there were no U.S. military casualties. There is no confirmation on the scale of Venezuelan civilian and military casualties.

I’m going to walk y’all through why this is very, very bad, and I’ll attempt to make it as clear as possible to outline the unnecessary risks and complications Trump is now forcing upon our country and the people of Venezuela and international stability.

It was a few weeks ago that Trump announced a “total and complete” naval blockade of oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, saying on social media:

"The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping. For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION."

The Republic of Venezuela, of course, has not been designated a “foreign terrorist organization.”

Trump is actually, incompetently referring to Cartel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”), a massive drug trafficking organization moving cocaine internationally that’s been sourced out of Colombia.

This past July, Cartel of the Suns was added as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by Trump’s Treasury Department and then as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by Trump’s State Department last month.

The significant wrinkle in all this is the openly corrupt relationship between the Cartel and the Venezuelan military; many of their senior leaders are complicit. In fact, the Cartel’s logo—a benign-looking sun not unlike what you’d see at the end of a segment on CBS Sunday Morning—is the insignia for Venezuelan military generals.

That’s all to say that the Venezuelan government—particularly its military and especially President Nicolás Maduro—are objectively bad people who do very bad things. Maduro has appointed many cartel members to senior positions within his government.

Yet, that’s not close to the full scope of Maduro’s awfulness. He has long been considered a dictator, having banned opposition parties, stealing elections, openly engaging in corruption, murder, and torture, and generally being a contender for worst head of government of the 21st century, which, as you’ll have noticed, has formidable competition.

Maduro has inarguably been worse for Venezuela than Trump has been for America, but ironically, Maduro is absolutely what Trump wishes he could be: an untouchable autocrat who expects his country—and the world—to bend to his every whim.

But that also makes him perfect for Trump’s political needs because more than anything, Trump needs a sufficient distraction from the compounding failures of his second term.

Everywhere you look, Trump is on the back foot.

His cabinet is the source of constant embarrassment, his biggest policy projects (like DOGE) have been unmitigated disasters, he ultimately lost the shutdown fight over the budget, unemployment is the highest it has been in four years, and good lord, there are so many other things, but this is key: the Epstein mess is ongoing.

This entire year has been one long effort by the Trump administration to bury the Epstein saga with an elongated series of distractions attempting to force it into obscurity.

But nothing has worked. They just can’t seem to kill the damn thing. The very reason Trump was elected twice—offering up bloody red meat on Democrats and the promise of schadenfreude—has now become a rabid wolf that constantly bites him in the ass on this issue.

Trump promised that all the pedophiles of the Democratic Party would be brought to justice. He literally campaigned on this, dangling that juicy schadenfreude for his diehard supporters who really don’t care about much beyond delicious retribution.

But then he got into office and slow-walked all developments on Epstein. Little morsels were doled out, like “releasing” a batch of already public files to conservative influencers and his attorney general Pam Bondi claiming the matter was on her desk.

Trump was hoping this shit would slowly go away, that he could titrate satisfaction, and honestly, given how everything else implicating him has gone away, why wouldn’t this, too? He figured that all he needed to do was wait it out, keep attacking Democrats, keep up the culture war nonsense, and he’d be able to emerge unscathed.

But it just refuses to go away. Shit keeps popping up: leaked drawings and survivor testimony and rogue Republican lawmakers and the humming engine of the “Epstein didn’t kill himself” conspiracy theory.

Perhaps more accurately: his base needs a combination of better schadenfreude in other forms than what they’ve been promised.

Thus, we’re getting things like Trump attaching plaques of childish trolling under the portraits of his “Presidential Walk of Fame” and Hegseth putting out bullshit culture war salvos with the Defense Department and all the other nonsense propaganda that makes for easy copy by legacy media on a daily basis.

They have to flood the zone with constant distractions away from Epstein and the economy and everything else that Trump and his team keep bungling.

(This is why, of course, Trump is illegally, slowly releasing the Epstein files in small, heavily redacted batches — to buy himself more time and hope the American people get tired of the whole thing and move on.)

Venezuela, in their minds, is perfect for that objective. Trump, despite his private admiration for Maduro, wants to make him the new Saddam Hussein.

He figures if he can convince enough moderates and unaware voters that Maduro is (or rather was) their greatest existential crisis and Trump “did something about it,” he can wag-the-dog his way through the litany of scandals—and underperformance on kitchen table issues—that plague his administration.

But Trump is incompetent and his administration is incompetent and their consultants are incompetent and the Republican Party is largely incompetent (on top of being blindingly subservient to Trump’s incompetence).

These are not seasoned operatives that know a good workaround and PR strategy in the most cynical vein of the Bush administration.

They are sociopathic clowns who believe they know how to play the game but keep fumbling on every drive.

For instance, Trump began his weirdo campaign against Venezuela by authorizing U.S. military strikes against boats in the Caribbean and adjacent areas that he alleged were involving in drug trafficking. Since early September, as many as 25 strikes (sources vary) have been carried out.

Part of the problem is that the Trump administration—primarily the Pentagon—have presented no credible evidence that any of the boats that were targeted were involved in drug trafficking.

On top of that, there’s credible evidence that at least some of the boat strikes killed innocent civilians. The most notable, to date, is the “double tap” strike in which survivors of an initial attack were said to be clinging to boats (and debris)—upon which no contraband could be confirmed—and were murdered by a follow-up attack.

That led to demands for video of the “double strike” to be released, which the Trump administration refuses to reveal and which Pete Hegseth has allegedly seen (and authorized) and for which responsibility was ultimately pinned on Admiral Frank Bradley, who now leads U.S. Special Operations Command and publicly went along with the story that he ordered the second strike.

Meanwhile, Admiral Alvin Holsey, former Commander of U.S. Southern Command, allegedly expressed concerns regarding the legality of all these boat strikes—which he has reportedly denied—but strangely retired last month, two years early.

Now, all of that is pretty damn weird in itself, but then you have Trump recently pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who was convicted last year by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in part for his role in importing more than 400 tons of cocaine.

So, while Trump has spent a lot of time claiming his campaign against Maduro is rooted in his administration’s war on drugs, he just freed a head of government that was involved in a shitload of cocaine finding its way into the United States.

Meanwhile, Trump is now pushing another narrative on this, as referenced above in his post: that the U.S. is seeking to “reclaim” oil that was stolen from our country by Venezuela. But the U.S. has no claim to Venezuela’s oil reserves. None. Zilch.

Maduro—as horrible a human being as he is—did not steal oil from the United States.

It’s all a propaganda feint — and a painfully bad one at that.

You see what I mean?

The Trump administration is blatantly lying about their justification for military action against Venezuela, did not receive authorization from Congress to do so, and didn’t even inform congressional leaders of the military operation carried out in the dead of night.

There is no legal or moral justification for invading Venezuela and kidnapping its officials. We have no business in this country. The U.S. military were, once again, used as political pawns by Trump to distract away from his abysmal record and open corruption in office.

But I’ll go even further: I am highly suspicious this may have been a coordinated plan between Trump and Maduro. It would not surprise me if Maduro and his wife are essentially given some form of asylum in the United States (or a country friendly to the Venezuelan dictator) while Trump pretends to seek punitive action against him that—surprise, surprise—never comes to fruition.

Meanwhile, Trump gets to portray himself as the Strong Man he’s always desperately wanted to be and attempt to curry public favor that he hopes will insulate him from the accelerating criticism of his administration.

Regardless of how this all went down behind-the-scenes, Trump has now thoroughly delegitimized the United States as a moral voice against illegal military operations carried out by other nations and given our worst enemies sufficient reason to take actions that further destabilize global security.

What’s to stop China from finally pulling the trigger and carrying out an operation like this against Taiwan? What’s to stop neighboring nations from invading each other for resources? What’s to stop other countries from pursuing the development of nuclear arms as a security measure against invasion?

Not to mention the way this will embolden terrorist groups around the world. They can point to Trump and say: “See? America is unhinged. We are justified in attacking the U.S. and its allies.”

I despise Nicolás Maduro, and he has long needed to be removed and held accountable for his atrocities.

But the consequences to come from Trump’s illegal actions in the dead of night will not be worth it.

Do not be lured into the short-term legacy media narrative that will be trotted out in the coming days.

This will not end well.

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Link to piece here for easier sharing: https://t.co/hwPv1d6MGI

[🖖🏻🖖🏻Chris B🖖🏻🖖🏻 @cjonn24]

@ChadRubel I do! I was hoping each series would have some short treks, including Lower Decks and Prodigy.

[🖖🏻🖖🏻Chris B🖖🏻🖖🏻 @cjonn24]

@Britannica Constitution Edition…loved that blue leather. I still have my set from the late 80’s.