If the republicans doesn’t back the fuck away from Trump now, there might not be any republicans anymore. They will all be considered guilty and there will be a reckoning for aligning with, and supporting Trump. — Christoffer

You underestimate the mental gymnastics involved in all of this. This thread should be a good sign of that.

He said a couple things (which he does all the time and costs him nothing) and managed to create panic in Europe, leading to them making concessions. — Tzeentch

I'm still confused as to what those concessions are exactly. From what I've heard about the framework deal it was essentially just the same arrangement that previously existed which already gave the US full control over Greenland's defense. At the very least when they did their thing in Venezuela they got Maduro. If he's gonna be risking a decades long alliance and causing Europe to seriously reconsider it's ties to the US then I was expecting something more tangible to be honest.

Neither China or Russia would even think of invading Greenland because they would immediately be pushed back by NATO forces. — Punshhh

Ironically I feel like now would be a great time for Russia to make a move on Greenland either to take advantage of the tensions within NATO or to exacerbate them. It's questionable if the Trump is really come to it's defense (placing his personal beef with Europe over his obligations under Article 5) or if Trump will condition defense on owning Greenland outright and who knows what the state of NATO will be as a result. His MAGA base ironically will probably act like this whole situation vindicates their leader somehow despite causing it to happen so we'll have to deal with that too.

Trump has nothing when it comes to a reason to annex Greenland. Maybe what he’s thinking of in 20 or 30yrs in the future when the arctic becomes less frozen and mining can be done where it is inaccessible at the moment.

For a guy who doesn't believe in climate change his actions seem to suggest otherwise. My own guess is that his obsession with Greenland (and also Canada to a lesser extent) is because Putin is genuinely interested in the Arctic. Trump may not believe in or understand global warming but Putin probably does and in the case of the Russians they think it's beneficial to them because it makes the Arctic more important geopolitically. Trump sees what's happening with Russia and China making moves on Ukraine and Taiwan and doesn't want to miss out on all the fun.

It's clear the American goal was to send a signal to all of Latin America: If you get too cozy with other great powers, we have the power and the will to ruin your country overnight. It's the Monroe Doctrine.

It's also a message to the rest of the world; if you reject our system, the gloves are coming off. — Tzeentch

Maduro up until his capture was more than willing to work with the US on whatever concerns it had. If they were trying to send a message to everyone to fall in line or else they picked a pretty lousy target for that. It seems more likely the message for most countries is that the world's greatest superpower is run by an irrational madman who thinks he can do anything for any reason. Countries have tried working and not working with him and in both cases they have gotten bombed.

So best case scenario from what I can tell is that the US worked out some deal with the Maduro government to capture him to save face while essentially keeping his government intact making this a pointless exercise. Worst case scenario is that this is gonna be another more reckless Iraq war situation.

Meanwhile healthcare premiums are spiking due to the administration letting ACA subsidies expire recently and the "America First" crowd is celebrating the kidnapping of a foreign leader.

My gut feeling is that the quality of the sight does not really affect the quality of the sound, not in some basic phenomenal sense – rather, there is a higher-order phenomenal space having a quality all its own, and that space is defined by two orthogonal axes of the two spaced of sight and sound. — Pneumenon

I agree in the sense that visual experiences do not look different in the sense that a color does not change its hue depending on what one hears, and that sounds do not sound different in their basic auditory qualities depending on what one sees.

However within a single modality the presence of other experiences can affect the phenomenal character of a given experience by situating it differently within the perceptual field. Like you said in your OP it's impossible to have a red experience and a green experience in the same part of our vision at the same time but so much as we do have a red and green experience they have to be experienced in different parts of our visual field. A red patch on the left side of the visual field feels different from the same red on the right, despite the color-quality being identical. If this is the case for intramodal experiences, then adding an auditory experience should likewise affect a visual experience, not by altering its intrinsic visual quality, but by changing its perceived position, salience, or role within a larger, multimodal phenomenal field. In that sense, sight and sound seem to be phenomenologically interdependent.

Wow, they couldn't even pretend like it isn't one sided. Just outright saying they're just concerned about violence against conservatives instead of political violence in general. I mean, that would be total bullshit anyways but yeah.

Wasn't the US supposed to be the beacon of light for free democratic societies in the world? Trying to install it in other nations by the means of anti-communist wars...? Fighting for the "good".

...how's that going? :sweat: — Christoffer

Americans will probably be paying more for their coffee as a result of this ruling since you're asking.

In 5 years either we will get AGI or we will get a massive market crash from the AI and crypto bubble popping similar to what happened during the dot com crash in 2000. Personally I think it's more likely to be the latter than the former.

He's gonna find an excuse one way or another to be honest. If he wants to expose himself as an authoritarian tyrant then let him, but I just hope people recognize it for what it is when it happens.

Trying to kill off the negotiators. What a brilliant negotiation tactic by Trump and the United States.

My worry is that they will do something about it. Not to fix anything of course but out of some retribution sort of thing maybe blaming the universities themselves instead of the guns. We're gonna be one Reichstag fire away for the next 3 and a half years at least.

He's firing everybody who undermines his narrative on the economy like the Fed chairs keeping interest rates high due to his tariffs and the labor people giving bad jobs reports, all to send a message to everyone else. Message sent.

And all he had to do was fire the people who report the economic data and install his own people!

Whatever you say.

So far, it's not as expected. It's actually a lot closer to what Trump predicted. — frank

It's hard for me to folllow what his actual plans are if there even are any, but if I recall wasn't this entire thing just to bring back manufacturing to the US? That isn't happening thus far: US manufacturing extends slump; factory employment lowest in 5 years

I think it's pretty obvious what the relationship (given the numerous photos and quotes from both people, plus Trump's own uncomfortable reaction to releasing the files) is which is why I find the shock in MAGA world so funny. Then again Democrats were shocked at Biden being senile last June when that was obvious too so I guess people just want to believe what they want to believe.

Speaking of which it seems like a narrative is forming that the government is covering the files up because of connections to another government. It'd be funny if this is what gets the right to turn on Israel, but you know this is bad when the right prefers to think they voted for a foreign puppet over an actual pedophile. Personally I think it's both.

You don't think they're hiding anything?

Honestly I find the situation more depressing and infuriating given that Trump just signed a bill that would gut $1 trillion from medicaid and leave tens of millions of the most vulnerable people uninsured all to fund tax breaks for the richest and yet this is what gets people outraged. As far as I see it Epstein is just a symptom of an oligarchy which they are more than happy to vote for again and again. We don't deserve to see the files.

You think you're seeing regime change? We've seen America do regime change. This is not regime change. I don't think Israel is doing it either. I think they could decapitate Iran if they really wanted to, but they don't want that. Yet. Israel could be much more ruthless than they currently are. — RogueAI

Israel certainly is going beyond just targeting Iran's nukes in it's strikes. Given Netanyahu's constant messages calling on the Iranians to rise up against their unpopular regime, he certaintly is trying to topple the regime also. As far as I can tell they were also planning to do a decapitation but according to reports (which could very well be false) they were told not to by the Americans.

Nobody messed with N. Korea before they had the bomb. They just kind of fester there, on the Korean Peninsula. — RogueAI

And they likely never will because they have a bomb. As big and powerful as the US is it can't get in the business of every country at once, and it certainly won't get involved when those other countries can strike back with a nuclear weapon. North Korea acquired nukes as the US was invading Iraq, you know, when you would've thought that the "cost of pursuing nuclear weapons" with Iraq being made an example would've deterred them.

Maybe stop doing stuff like that? — RogueAI

Your original point was that they should just abandon their nuke program and everything would be fine for them.

The cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon has just been made prohibitively more expensive and dangerous. — RogueAI

And the cost of not having a nuclear weapon has also been made more clear to other countries adding to the examples of Iraq and Libya.

Well, now Iran is truly screwed, because Israel and the U.S. really will decapitate the ruling regime. — RogueAI

Which isn't much different from what they're doing now, particularly in Israel's case.

Even if Iran successfully tests a nuke, what is Israel's best strategic move? Prevent Iran from getting more nukes. Regime change. And their buddy Trump will probably go along with it. — RogueAI

Their best strategic move is to not to recklessly anger another nuclear power. North Korea also demonizes the Americans regularly and guess what, nobody is messing with them because they actually have a bomb.

If you're Iran, isn't the best move to give up on enrichment and take your chances with diplomacy? — RogueAI

Maybe, if they didn't try diplomacy 10 years ago and got a deal that was eventually ripped up before getting bombed anyways.

Yes, it does. If, after Gulf War 1, Iraq had been completely transparent about the end of it's WMD program and destruction of all it's WMD"s, do you think they still would have been invaded? — RogueAI

Yes because the US would've fabricated another lie instead.

If Iran got nukes, otoh, and took out Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa, could Israel come back from that? There's a case to be made that a nuclear Iran really could end Israel's existence. — RogueAI

And this is why I think the Israelis will push for war until the regime collapses. The reason why they won't accept the Iranians getting a nuke is because of their government. Iran getting rid of a nuclear deterrent will make them more vulnerable.

None of that matters to the actual reason the war started. The US wanted to go to war with Iraq as much as the Israelis do now with Iran, because they perceive the Iranian regime itself as an existential threat.

Like Iraq?

They've had many of their top scientists eliminated and whether or not they succeeded in saving some enriched product, their manufacturing base has been hugely diminished. They're already in deep shit economically and isolated politically and militarily. And as much as I dislike Trump, I think the US has the upper hand. If - big if - Iran and Israel do agree to the ceasefire that Trump has (perhaps prematurely) announced, I don't think Iran is going to be in a position to dictate any terms. — Wayfarer

The US has had the upper hand in this for a while but that hasn't really changed the calculus when it comes to the Iranian negotiating position. And there's also the matter that the Israelis won't trust whatever promise to never make nukes they may agree to.

Even if they took out all sites and materials, which they haven’t, Iran still have the knowledge to do so, and now an even greater incentive to start again — with deeper bunkers. — Mikie

Unfortunately this will probably be the new argument that the neocons and the Israelis will use to convince the US to get involved further. There's no point in leaving Iran to rebuild their nuclear capacity after everything that just happened to them so a regime change operation is the only necessary course of action to truly secure peace. There is a very good chance that the Iranians moved their stockpiles and they have probably decided that getting a nuclear weapon is the only reasonable way to get deterrence.

Well, that happened.

Yeah that's a concern for them but at this point I don't see the regime surviving anyways, not in it's current form and not with the current relationship with the Kremlin.

If anything US involvement in Iran benefits Putin. Gas prices will go up and the US will forget about Europe. There's also China too, but that's another matter.

I don't think so. There's no need for an escalation like the Israeli attack on USS Liberty. — ssu

Yeah based on the news of the past few hours it seems like the US is gonna be involved anyways unless Trump changes his mind again.

Hopefully Iran won't enlargen the conflict by closing the straight of Hormuz. This would put oil prices skyrocketing and force Trump to go to a full war with Iran. Somehow I think they aren't going to be so reckless, if the US stays out of attacking Iran itself. If Trump would join the party, then it's another matter. — ssu

Do you think it's possible for Israel to do something with the strait and pin the blame on the Iranians somehow? It seems they'd have an interest in doing a covert operation to get the US involved. Similar to what happened with Ukraine and the Nord Stream pipeline.

I wouldn’t politicise such a heinous act. Politicising it is the kind of thing MAGA would do, had the shoe been on the other foot. — Wayfarer

They're still trying to politicize it regardless, check out the previous page.

Blaming Trump for this is just naive, and distracts from the fact that this war has been long in the making with the Israel lobby and the US neocon establishment basically frothing at the mouth to start it. — Tzeentch

It's been long in the making in large part because of the policies of his first term. Between the Abraham accords and ripping up an existing nuclear agreement, what's occurring now is just the logical consequence of what he did several years ago. Pretending to be a champion of peace in the last few moments is as hilarious as Biden pretending to care about the lives of Palestinians now that he's no longer president.

The draft for Thursday’s resolution highlights serious and growing concerns since at least 2019 that Iran had failed to cooperate fully with the UN agency’s inspectors.

I'll leave you to guess what happened before 2019 that led to that happening.

I don't think this problem is coming from Washington. It's Netanyahu. — frank

Obviously Netanyahu is the one pushing for this the most and he luckily has people in the White House like Biden and Trump to do his bidding. It's funny to think just 10 years ago we got a nuclear deal with Iran which Trump foolishly ripped up in his first term, and Biden foolishly didn't get back into during his term.

Sure I'm up for a laugh. Besides Trump did say that Israel should strike Iran's nuclear sites last October:

Trump says he thinks Israel should ‘hit’ Iran nuclear facilities By AFP

My guess is it'll probably be a war, but I'm open to hearing how this is all somehow a 4D chess negotiating tactic by Trump from his supporters.

If the protestors really were able to conduct themselves in the spirit of non-violent resistance, it would take a lot of the wind out of Trump's sails. But, human nature being what it is, the protests will always attract a coterie of those who just want to rumble. They will provide the wedge that Trump needs to justify calling in the troops. — Wayfarer

Not all protests are violent (in fact I'd say alot of them don't devolve into riots) and usually the level of violence depends on how law enforcement chooses to respond. Compare how the trucker convoy protests played out in Canada vs. Europe for instance. This is the problem with the Trump administration's approach since they're provoking a fight (intentionally) by using excessive means.

Trump's bromance with Musk has blown up in his face and here's a useful distraction and a way to make him look like a tough guy. — RogueAI

Honestly I think feuding with the world's richest man would be good for him politically, putting aside the fact that he gave him DOGE (which his supporters are willing to do anyways).That being said, nothing beats the classics like going after immigrants I guess.

So that warrants sending in the US military?

And there are better ways of doing so than sending in the Marines to deal with flag burners.