Goldberg is a long time establishment journalist, he was one of the first to run the “Iraq has WMDs” stories. So that makes sense. This could also be used now to try get an excuse to remove Waltz. Trump has already sidelined him on Ukraine, so they could use this to get rid of him. Waltz leaking information to a rube like Goldberg might be the end of his presence in the Trump administration.

Also after reading the full article on The Atlantic, it doesn’t seem as if there was much classified information released. Discussions on the strike packages and weapons used, what was hit, and discussing which leaders were killed, is quite an open issue. Open source analysts do that all the time. Obviously Hegseth discussing it on signal just before, during, or after the strikes is a different matter, but it’s not like he just leaked the entire US warplan to the group chat. All the truly top secret stuff was discussed on the “high side”, and not on the signal group chat, according to the article. So Goldberg saying that the war plans were texted to him is pushing it slightly.

Jasmine Crockett

That’s the new face that the Dems have been trying to push big time, from the little I’ve seen of her, apparently she’s full neocon towards Russia. Maybe she flew too close to the sun for the Dem establishment now? “Governor Hot Wheels” is probably not going to go over well on a wider level.

The plan is also very impractical to say the least. For example, Venezuelan crude reportedly gets shipped to Malaysia, rebranded and sent to China. Who gets slapped with tariffs in this case? And also how do you even prove it? Or maybe that’s besides the point.

Yes, it’s beside the point. Trying to argue with the cop that he doesn’t know the law. SMH.

He doesn’t care. The law is just an excuse to do what he wants to do. He doesn’t have to be consistent. He doesn’t have to make sense. All he has to do is distract you with the pretense that there’s some kind of rationale behind his actions.

Literally the whole basis for the liberal legal system. The rules are not for those who make/enforce them. They’re for the dupes; the suckers.

So to see if we understand correctly, Trump is going to impose 25% tariffs on US imports of rice noodles from China because there are Chinese refiners that buy Venezuelan crude? We’d call it absurd, but in these times.

Fuck… I don’t have the spare cash to stock up on ramen noodles.

IDK I think you kind of picked a bad example here is a better one

Overall I think its a possible mistake to think China is unique to this criticism. Yes certainly Japan gets to benefit from delusional weebs biased expectations but what I’ve noticed is even after the “permanent tourist” boom led by some like AbroadinJapan and others, they’ve been quite open in talking about the issues and downsides, despite remaining overall positive, I mean why wouldn’t they? I agree Japan is not a bad place for a foreigner specially compared to post 2020 US/EU.

If you’re really familiar you’ll know this has always been controversial, there was this one guy in the early internet Arudou Debito yeah? He was infamous even 15 years ago and people could not accept his criticism. To be fair he is exactly the type of westerner loser that goes to Japan, gets shocked and then turns Japan hate into a career.

I think overall Americans and western are more racist and biased against Asians than not, the image of cool Japan from the 1990s is far gone and it is not hard to find open and often racist based criticism.

Quite simply genz and later are not growing up with the same Japanese cultural boom as millennials in the early 2000s and it shows. Japan is still popular but you can find pro-Chinese channels with just as many views and overall Asian racism is stronger now than ever.

It probably helps that Japan has been depicted as a wholesome anime country and a model for what the rest of Asia should be. People want more anti-China shit because they’ve been primed for decades to hate it.

Slotkin, Pritzker, and Buttigieg being that high is just depressing. As if they would do anything different in Schumer’s position.

Libs still only want keys to be jingled in their face. Nothing more.

AOC and ratfucker are tied (both are awful). Deeply unwell party

here’s how bernie can still win:

Bernie rallying with AOC seems to be helping her on the numbers front at least. But the question is if AOC can stand alone. Last time she tried it from 2020-2024, her numbers tanked. Bernie is not going to be around forever.

Libs will immediately turn around and say “this is why we need to reelect Biden!”

relatable tbh. Schumer is doing worse than nothing, at least JDPON Don is destroying USAID and American soft power

Banning it in checkins and services by requiring an alternative be offered is neat. But will they also ban it in realtime CCTV use?

I distinguish “realtime” because I don’t think we can stop its use in not-realtime. Anyone can run a video recording through facial recognition database, it’s the realtime tracking of people’s locations that poses a problem.

Asked if they have any intelligence to suggest foreign backing for pro-Palestinian college protests, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tells Congress, “there are some assessments that reflect that and we can talk about that in the closed session.”

A golden rule is that if they have so called concrete evidence, they would of blasted to everyone by now. The fact that it`s closed session, you know what you are dealing with.

This is if they are courteous, Israel and the US are not even justifying blasting a hospital in Gaza this week.

How threatening is a B-52, anyway? They were made in 1955. In one operation lasting 11 days in 1972, North Vietnam shot down 15 of them; 34 according to North Vietnam. And then the B-52 was only 17 years old. Now it’s 70 years old.

Yes, the B-52 can carry nukes, but so can the stealth F-35. In fact, the F-35 can carry the B61-12 which has 50 kiloton yield — substantially more than the combined yield of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15 kiloton) and Nagasaki (25 kiloton).

That’s not exactly correct. If B-52s are ever going to be deployed against Iran, they will not be entering Iranian airspace. They’ll be lobbing long range cruise missiles at Iran from outside of Iranian airspace (similar to Russian Tu-95M bombers against Ukraine), including those with conventional or electromagnetic/microwave warheads in the CHAMP missile. In the extremely unlikely event that the B-52s would deploy nuclear weapons, these would also be standoff cruise missiles. AGM-158B JASSM-ER cruise missiles (conventional or electromagnetic warheads) have a range of over 600 miles/1000km. AGM-86B cruise missiles (nuclear armed) have a range of over 1 500mi/2 400km. B-52s won’t be getting close to Iranian airspace. The challenge to Iran would be shooting down the cruise missiles, not the B-52 itself. B-52s won’t be carpet bombing Vietnam as they did over half a century ago. Warfare has changed. Bombers like the B-52 or Tu-95 are relegated to the role of “cruise missile trucks” against an opponent with air defence systems.

The B61 is a gravity bomb, the F-35s or B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft carrying them would have to penetrate deeply into Iranian airspace to carry out the these missions. It’s a completely different threat profile to the B-52. A stealth aircraft penetrating deeply into Iranian airspace versus an aircraft lobbing cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away. B61 yield can also be dialled down to as low as 0.3 kilotons. It’s these lower yield options that make nuclear war more likely, not the higher yield settings.

In the extremely unlikely event that a nuclear first strike is launched against Iran, it would come from the submarine vector, in the form of Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) like the Trident-II D5. No one knows where the submarines are, they could launch from literally anywhere on the earth’s oceans, including right next to Iran itself. It’s different to bombers or aircraft parked in Saudi Arabia or Diego Garcia. Iran would get minutes of warning, if that, from their over the horizon early warning radars, provided that they’re not suppressed or destroyed simultaneously. The velocity at the start of re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere for a Trident MIRV is Mach 24, 24 times the speed of sound, and each Trident missile has 12 MIRVs. There is no intercepting that. This makes it a very inviting option for a nuclear first strike, compared to lobbing cruise missiles or entering Iranian airspace with stealth aircraft.

Building on that, the point Klippstien was making is that the Trident-II SLBMs have access to a new tactical nuclear warhead, one that did not exist previously. Previously the lowest yield warhead available to the Trident-II was the W-76 Mod 1, at 90 kilotons yeild each. This meant that a tactical use of this weapon was not possible, the yeild was too high. So tactical nuclear strikes were limited to cruise missiles and gravity bombs. Now there’s a new warhead for the Trident-II, the W-76 Mod 2, with a yield as low as 5 kilotons each. Again, each Trident-II SLBM can be armed with 12 of these warheads simultaneously. The 45 times lower yield per warhead makes the option of using this vector for a nuclear attack much more palatable to generals and politicians. It’s a new tactical nuclear vector that was only fully incorporated under Biden’s administration, in the new warplans, and not available previously. Now the Trident-II SLBM can be used tactically, with all the advantages the MIRV capable SLBM vector has over cruise missiles and gravity bombs. Where Klippstien goes wrong is assuming that Biden or Trump makes a difference here, this is the evolution of warfare and US government policy. If any politician is to blame it’s probably Obama for pushing for the modernisation of the US tactical nuclear arsenal.

Don’t get me wrong I still think that Klippstien is being extremely sensationalist and that a nuclear strike on Iran is extremely unlikely, and trying to act as if Trump is some unique actor here is an incorrect conclusion. But it’s important to get the facts right on exactly what kind of threat Iran faces, and why tactical nuclear strikes are seen as more palatable due to the development of new low yield weapons from new attack vectors. The new weapons are a significant military development.

Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but when Carrol calls his substack the “Scientific Journal of Objective Truths and Proof”, and gets the objective truths and proofs wrong, I feel the need to correct it.

I think because the old news thread is still pinned and this one isn’t.

im burned out

Ever peep the articles on the ukranian drone squads?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_Systems_Forces

check those totally normal insignias, lots of ‘14th battalion’ and lots of skulls and eagles

western media still sends journalists to hang out in their trenches and talk about how tuff and cool they are, mah freedom fighters, the rooskis never stood a chance