wdhalgren

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ALL socialism could work nicely, "so long as it receives support from the establishment (capitalists)."

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It won't even work with support of the capitalists. The welfare state is too big for our economy to support using taxation. What the left is aiming for now is control of the printing press. Once they have that, there's no way to stop it. The country just evaporates in a mushroom cloud of hyperinflation.

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If China and the Middle East want to let them do it, then go fo it. ME countries and China have no reason to fear Iran, but they want to cave and be weak, that is not our problem.

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China supports Iran. They've been helping Iran build their military for decades. They've been buying sanctioned Iranian oil and supplying Iran with dual use tech and materiel even during this conflict. China doesn't fear Iran because Iran is their ally and gaining control of the Gulf oil and gas producing states is their plan. Controlling the SOH is a big part of that plan. And apparently, the US Congress is okay with that. If Rubio thinks China/Iran controlling the SOH is unacceptable, he should be saying that to his own party in Congress.

Did those folks sleep through the last 25 years? The democrat party started radicalizing after Bill Clinton left office. Socialism is the least of it; the left has been calling for and practicing for a violent revolution for over a decade. Might as well own it because anyone who paid attention knows this sudden "concern" about moving hard left is all bullshite.

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What does 80 billion buy you in a war against Iran?

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This is a question that has been discussed repeatedly through the entire thread. If you're interested in my views, click on my user name and read my opinions.

I don't opine much here on the LGBTQetc issues because there are things I think are more important, but adoption is where I draw the line. They don't always get it, but every child deserves a nurturing mother. A man can't fill that role. People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts of nature.

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My contention is that the postwar, U.S.-led international order organized around dollar reserve dominance, trade openness, and American military primacy, has delivered substantial geopolitical advantages to the United States while simultaneously imposing structural costs on its productive economy.

It is consistent then to claim that persistent trade deficits, deindustrialization, financialization, and rising domestic inequality can be seen as systemic features of a dollar-centered global system, and that many of Trump’s trade and foreign-policy initiatives can be understood as attempts to rebalance these embedded asymmetries.

While we can all acknowledge that the liberal international order has generated enormous benefits for the United States, the important question in the context of my earlier posts is not simply whether the system’s aggregate benefits outweigh its costs, but whether its costs, which are highly concentrated and disproportionately borne by the American productive base, have begun to erode the domestic political foundation required to sustain it.

The extent to which large segments of the population perceive globalization as economically punitive, enriching financial, political, and industrial elites while degrading their own material position, is politically significant and animates the populist backlash associated with Trump, undermining the domestic consensus necessary to maintain an expansive and costly global leadership role.

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There's some truth, a lot of truth, in your post. I don't believe that the economic damages you cite were inevitable "features" of the dollar centric global system. We could've used that privilege to invest dollars. Instead, over the decades we have abused that dollar privilege to accumulate excess public and private debt for consumption of excess discretionary goods. The question of whether the benefits of dollar dominance would outweigh the costs depended on how the system was implemented. Unfortunately our choices were not good and the resulting answer is no, not in the long term. That's where we are.

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I quoted Kane directly from Citizen Free Press.

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Yet you showed a tweet from Trey Yingst, the Fox News correspondent who spoke to Trump. And his direct quote is very different from what you stated above.

Forensic accounting. :lol:

From what I heard there, his response was essentially, "My friends say that this allegation came from someone other than my friends. Therefore I won't even adress the substance of your question."

From what I've read, the ground troops of neither side could accurately be called a volunteer army.

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Sounds like a bunch of posters from this thread wrote it, then claimed it as fact

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You say that as sort of a joke, but it's amazing how quickly "journalism" has devolved into social media smack talk. There was never much integrity, but there was a time when the bias was more subtle, the lies a bit harder to detect. These days I'm impressed if they can negotiate subect-verb agreement. The pretense of objectivity is a lost art.

The author tries hard to paint this in the worst possible light. Here's the first thing I noticed from the bolded part.

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Point No. 5: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.” Why would opening the door for “administration” of a previously free international waterway even be part this agreement?

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He left out the first part of point No. 5: "Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. "

If nobody believes that this agreement is carved in stone, or maybe will ever be honored, why are folks so perturbed by the possibility that Iran will conduct dialog about future administration. Things will change over the next 60 days. Assuming that the worst will happen, after 60 days Iran becomes overseer and tollmaster of the SOH, seems like doomcasting and is certainly not guaranteed or even acknowledged in the memorandum. I don't have a link, but Vance did say a few days ago that the long term plan is for passage through the SOH to remain free and unencumbered. The worst that can be said is that there remain future points of contention, which everyone involved and observing already knew.

The article also makes this claim, that the MOU provides

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Protection of Hezbollah from Israeli attack. No mention of Iran reining in its terror proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen.

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Once again, misleading, or more accurately, lying. Point # 1 says this:

"The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war by signing this MOU declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts including in Lebanon and other provisions of this paragraph."

This clearly doesn't protect Hezbollah if they refuse to terminate their activities against Israel. Despite any rhetoric to date, nobody in the administration expects Israel to do nothing while Hezbollah continues their terror war from Lebanon. It even goes further and states that Iran and their allies must ensure the " territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon." The Lebanese government has made it clear that they consider Hezbollah to be an unwelcome force and a threat to their sovereignty. The MOU does not provide "protection for Hezbollah".

and this:

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No mechanism to surrender the enriched uranium it has already created.

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Point #8 clearly addressed this claim:

"resolve the disposition of stockpile enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon in accordance with the schedule mentioned in Paragraph 7 with the the minimum methodology to be downblending on site under the supervision of the IAEA."

This doesn't rule out removing the material entirely, but why go to the trouble of removing fissile material if it can more easily be degraded on site, and verified as such? Did the author not read or understand that sentence?

I could go on, but it's clear this article by whomever was either written in bad faith or without good comprehension of what the MOU says.