Absolutely agree

The fact that someone stood up and said “we do not trust the honor of the US to fulfill a debt” is important. We’ll see how much of an impact that actually has, but my kneejerk reaction is that it was meaningful.

What the fuck is the point of that? Particularly considering that Putin and his inner circle are surely just cackling in the back room at the prospect of the US becoming a real and serious adversary to the EU?

oh, but surely he wouldn’t actually annex his neighbors! Nobody wants a repeat of the Great War!

Frankly, it makes more sense than many things he’s done. And it doesn’t make any sense at all.

From a unitedstatesian who rather detests what our government is doing: get your specialized tool and component manufacturers to blacklist the US. It doesn’t even have to be at an official level - just stop taking orders from, and shipping to, the US. Our industrial base will simply not be able to function effectively given how much we’ve offshored.

Threatening to straight up annex Greenland is also a nuclear option. I fail to see how halting trade is an escalation in this context.

The regime has already openly stated, repeatedly, to any media that will listen, and in significant (if somewhat contradictory and nonsensical) detail that they consider Europe an adversary. Get your political leaders to stop pussyfooting around and take the situation fucking seriously. The best time to have started that was a literal decade ago, the first time he took a spin. The second best time to start that is right fucking now.

He’ll absolutely find a way to fuck it up into some sort of humanitarian catastrophe, make money off of it, and push the average opinion that Iranian people have of America even lower.

stand back and stand by

In terms of escalation with Europe: next would be any European territory in the Caribbean / Gulf of Mexico (e.g. BVI’s; side note: no fucking way will I ever use the regime’s idiotic rename of that body of water), then any European holdings in South America (e.g. French Guiana), then straight up annexation of countries in central/South America. Then probably an attempt to sweep up any other extraterritorial European enclaves in other areas (Canary Islands? The Azores? Who knows?).

This is what “sphere of influence” politics means. This is the new reality.

Computer, end program.

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Computer, door.

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Fuck.

I submit that you have no fucking clue what America is supposed to be, and that you’re just getting your jollies off of parroting jingoistic conservative dogma.

Any “protection” the current regime is liable to offer the protesters is going to be more akin to mafia “protection” than the traditional definition of the term.

I’m not pre-accepting. If anything, I’m absolutely irate that fucking nobody with any semblance of official power has done anything seriously meaningful to stymie the regime’s abject idiocy - and I include the jaw-dropping myopic political shitshow that the DNC ran in the 2024 election, as well as Biden’s outright refusal to hold anyone from orangeboi’s first stint accountable in any serious or meaningful way.

Incompetence is the rule of the day, on both sides of our established political spectrum. The only serious difference is that the right wing is gleefully malicious and overtly prejudiced, while the left wing plaintively complains and capitulates while still lining their pockets from largely the same donors that the right wing gets paid by.

That’s… not a great development. Physical intimacy is generally an important part of most relationships.

Don’t condescend to me. It’s not “oh well”. It’s pragmatism and acknowledgement of facts that are actually happening and occurring.

I wish that this wasn’t happening the way it is; nonetheless, it is happening. Denying reality is counterproductive. I’m not saying laws are unimportant. I’m saying that laws are being ignored, and to expect the regime to suddenly start abiding by laws is incredibly naive, to the point that it could be described as idiocy.

Insisting that the norms and laws protect us, in the context of a regime that pointedly does not give a single fuck about norms and laws, is deeply naive to the point that it borders on willful ignorance.

Don’t get me wrong - I wish it wasn’t the case. But that’s what’s happening nowadays, and to pretend otherwise is nonsensical at this point.

It’s kinda crazy that all the young people in Korea and Japan are like “work conditions are so fucking brutal I don’t have the energy to do anything else”, and then their governments go “hey, I know, the solution is work longer and harder”. Like… what the fuck are they expecting to happen here? They’ve demographically aimed the boat at a waterfall and are pinning the throttle open.

He’s openly talking about just suspending the midterms. So if he does that, I expect he’d suspend 2028 too. At this point, I don’t think they’re expecting to let go of power at all, ever.

So uh… I think that exiled prince maybe got a call from orangeboi and struck a deal. I understand the repressive and theocratic nature of the current regime… but I can’t help also being deeply concerned for what that might imply for normal Iranians in the coming years, if that’s what is happening here, and our military and/or the CIA orchestrates (yet another) coup in Iran to put the guy in power.

I’m tired, boss