Jonathan 🇺🇦

Illini grad and Detroit sports fan

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

@AriFleischer Your cult leader got absolutely owned by Iran. Back to the status quo but with the US paying them even more “pallets of cash”. All for a 60-day cease fire to start up the negotiations that were happening before this stupid war.

[Kat Whetstone @katwhetstone_]

This is a heavier post, but one I needed to write.

SURVIVORSHIP: On being a sexual assault survivor working in hockey, and how on days like today, it's absolutely devastating.

https://t.co/IqYdNKship

[Aimen Dean @AimenDean]

Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.

First of all, contrary to the impression being created, the GCC were NOT blindsided by Project Freedom.

They knew about it beforehand. Roughly half a day before. The airspace was opened. The facilities were available. Nobody objected. There was broad support for the idea because, at least publicly, Project Freedom was supposed to be a limited humanitarian-security operation aimed at relieving the 22,000 sailors trapped around Hormuz and allowing shipping lanes to breathe again.

Nobody in the GCC had a problem with that.

But here is the issue .. and this is the part the NBC article completely misses.
If you are asking GCC countries to participate in such an operation, then you need to be upfront about the rules of engagement from day one!

You cannot say:
“Please open your skies and bases, expose your energy infrastructure”
…only for everyone to discover afterwards that the actual American policy was apparently:

“Oh by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we still won’t retaliate because Donald Trump is busy chasing The Deal.”

And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis. Not the Iranian attack itself.

The UAE/GCC expected retaliation.. This is Iran. Nobody in the Gulf is naïve about that anymore.
The shock came from the American reaction afterwards.

You had attacks against Emirati infrastructure. Fujairah was targeted. Multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles.

And Washington’s response was basically:
“Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.”
Minor incident?!

For the GCC that was madness.

Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations.

Everything became:
The deal.
The deal.
The beautiful deal.
The greatest deal.
The mother of all deals.
The ultimate “Art of the deal”
Or perhaps, more accurately:
The ultimate fart of the deal.

Because from the Gulf perspective, this stopped looking like strategy and started looking like desperate political vanity mixed with deadly wishful thinking.

Had the GCC been told beforehand:
“Listen, whatever Iran does to you during Project Freedom, America will not retaliate because we do not want to endanger negotiations…”
…they would have almost certainly refused participation from the start.

The problem was not Project Freedom itself.

The problem was discovering midway through the operation that the GCC countries were apparently expected to sit there quietly as punching bags while Washington played negotiation theatrics with Tehran. So the Saudis and Kuwaitis pulled plug!

Because the GCC know something US usually forgets:

Iran plays the long game.
You can freeze enrichment.
Pause enrichment.
Delay enrichment.
Sign ten agreements.
Twenty agreements.
Forty agreements.

But if the infrastructure remains…
If the centrifuges remain…
If the IRGC remains…
If the proxy network remains…

then eventually the game resumes.

There will be another distraction.
Another pandemic.
Another financial crisis.
Another war somewhere else.
Another paralysis in Washington.
And while the world is distracted, enrichment quietly resumes again.

Ironically, much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile expanded during the pandemic years precisely because global attention was elsewhere.

Judging by the reaction to the UAE attacks, the Saudis and Kuwaitis concluded that Trump’s version of deterrence had become:

“Please absorb the missiles quietly because I’m trying to write the sequel to “The Fart of the Deal.”

[Qasim Rashid, Esq. @QasimRashid]

Iran Deal By Obama:
•Strait of Hormuz open for free
•Iran limits Uranium enrichment
•Iran agrees to make no nuclear weapons
•Iran allows Int'l inspectors to ensure compliance
•Inspectors confirm Iran's full compliance

Iran Ceasefire By Trump:
•Strait of Hormuz closed, only open for $2M Per Ship
•Iran makes no guarantee of limit on uranium enrichment
•Iran makes no guarantee of no nuclear weapons
•Iran makes no guarantee to allow Int'l inspectors

MAGA: Trump Playing 5D Chess! Art Of The Deal!!

[Nandita Bose @nanditab1]

White House says they asked Tulsi to fire Joe Kent. Her team says they didn’t. Kent says there was no imminent threat to justify war with Iran. Tulsi says Trump decided there was based on intelligence, without clearly stating the intel showed one. Now WH and ODNI officials are leaking conflicting accounts. The split over the core case for war is hard to miss.

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

So @TimSheehyMT will be working to get him a pardon, right? Bc that’s what the GOP does for people who,come to the Capitol looking for confrontation.

[Tim Sheehy @TimSheehyMT]

Capitol Police were attempting to remove an unhinged protestor from the Armed Services hearing. He was fighting back. I decided to help out and deescalate the situation.

This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one. I hope he gets the help he needs without causing further violence.

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

@Buzzed_BoredPod @RichardMixin37 @sabanfaux But you can, right? Bc it fits your agenda. Pathetic hypocrite.

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

@Buzzed_BoredPod @sabanfaux Maybe we are pissed that the FBI director used our tax dollars so he could go and celebrate rather than do his f-ing job.

[Patrick Jaicomo @pjaicomo]

Senator Lee, observing parallels between federal agents and cartel members does not make federal agents seem like good guys.

[Brian Schatz @brianschatz]

Mike, I would like ICE to have the same standards as a local police department, not cartel hitmen.

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Kash Patel in 2023: “I’m just saying [FBI Director] Chris Wray doesn’t need a government funded G5 jet to go to vacations. Maybe we ground that plane. $15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought.”

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

Your daily reminder that @BasedMikeLee is a blithering idiot. Truly a moron among morons. Or dishonest. But why not both?

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

@_WilliamsonBen is a lying liar that lies. And he is with the Trump administration. But I repeat myself.

[Ben Williamson @_WilliamsonBen]

Your rag outlet wrote that he went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime - even when provided information that your theory was false. When you’re ready to correct that let me know. Won’t hold my breath.

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

@Zigmanfreud Why are you for protecting pedofiles? Why are you so concerned about rich men who sexually assaulted and raped girls? Why do you want to protect men who knew what was going on and still hung out with him?

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

Trump nominated a legit white nationalist to a top post at the State Department. I asked him some basic questions about his belief in the “erasure of white culture”. Watch this embarrassing, fumbling answer. Like he has never before been asked to explain his views.

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

@Zigmanfreud Some pretty pathetic “whataboutism”. Trump and his ilk campaigned on this. They promised these files would be released. Now that they are, you complain that it is unfair to Trump? How gross.

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

When Kansas did a version of the SAVE Act, it purged around 40 ineligible voters - and stopped 31,000 legal citizens from registering to vote (12% of all applicants). That's 775 legal voters lost for every 1 ineligible voter.

https://t.co/pQNflYWjx7

[Matt McDermott @mattmfm]

A few months ago Kristi Noem made national headlines claiming that a family had beat ICE agents with snow shovels.

ICE was then caught detaining and trying to deport witnesses of the alleged attack, to prevent them from testifying.

Turns out, Noem lied. It never happened.

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

@darren_learning @LeahLibresco @GayBearRes None of those vaccines are mandated. But if the US government refuses to approve them (like it’s doing with the flu vaccine) the economics don’t work.

[Jonathan 🇺🇦 @jdysl72]

We live in the dumbest timeline.

[Leah Libresco Sargeant @LeahLibresco]

“Moderna’s CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: ‘You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market.’ Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.”