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Eugene Volokh | 6.18.2025 9:37 AM
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It looks like the suspected assassin in Minnesota is a holy roller. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/06/17/vance-boelter-minnesota-shooting-christianity/
Why am I unsurprised?
Because you don't THINK, you aren't surprised.
X is an animal rights person, but killed the 4 dogs of a friend who angered him, Is he an animal rights person?
John is anti-capital punishment and he killed his neighbor who made fun of his politics.
May is a Jew but belongs to a Muslim woman's group. Is May really a Jew.
Am I a killer who calls himself Christian, or am I a Christian and a killer.
Use your head
I don't know, bye. Are you a killer who calls himself Christian, or a Christian and a killer?
As the Nobel laureate (physics) Steven Weinberg observed, "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
ERGE you must be religious QED
To say QED, you must have actually demonstrated that which you intended to prove. Assertion doesn't count. Is ab ille, fortibus es in aro.
Let's see his manifesto.
Regardless, Boelter gets the needle. Or Old Sparky. He deserves death.
Now the repoting is there are pages and pages of notes, but about his victim list, their address, but no actual manifesto with motive or objective.
And I will admit I appear to be wrong about one thing, it is does not appear that he targeted Melissa Hortman based on her vote on health care for illegals. I am basing that assessment on the fact her's was the fourth legislator's house he visited, even though the only fatality. Seems if that was the reason it would be his first stop. But that is just my surmise.
I'm amazed that the other couple is gong to make it -- 8 & 9 9mm rounds at (I presume) fairly close range and living? That wouldn't have happened 30 years ago, the advances in trauma medicine are amazing.
I'd want to see the ENTIRE target list, and then compare it to the frequency with which those names appeared in the media. In other words, my suspicion is that they might just be the politicians most mentioned in the media and his motive was nothing other than name familiarity.
Also there is still the possibility of accomplices so we may not be told the truth -- i.e. he may have a manifesto and/or may have had conservatives on his list -- we wouldn't be told this so that LEOs can sort out the false confessors from those who are actually involved because only the latter would know stuff like this.
Oh good lord.
You've made a fool of yourself at this point.
Stop digging.
What makes a fool is someone who never admits error about anything.
You are seeking a cookie for admitting inconsequential errors while not seeing the error in your whole outcome-seeking endeavor.
That makes it look like your 'admitting error' is just an instrumental attempt to look objective.
You're not fooling anyone.
Kazinski : "And I will admit I appear to be wrong about one thing ..."
I guess you see that as a dignified retreat. In fact, you were wrong about everything.
I can't we disagree without being nasty?
I can't describe the wound to my dignity when I read this this morning sitting on the couch in my boxers.
This isn’t disagreeing about some reasonable thing. You were and are constructing an I-want-to-believe delusion in real time.
And that thing you want so bad is to blame liberals unjustifiably.
Do you not even understand why you are getting so much pushback?
You are a clown.
"Regardless, Boelter gets the needle. Or Old Sparky. He deserves death."
Minnesota does not have the death penalty. I haven't done a deep dive into what federal statutes may apply here and the penalties that such statutes carry.
That is too bad, b/c the SOB certainly deserves it = No DP in MN
The feds have
Yes, we know, you're an anti-religious bigot.
Here's a hint for you. When you want to make a statement like this, replace the anti-religious bigotry with the word "black". If it sounds like it might be racist...maybe reconsider what you are thinking.
IE "It looks like the suspected assassin in Minnesota is black. Why am I not surprised?"
So you don't like bigotry, eh?
False analogy, Armchair. Unlike race, religion is not an immutable characteristic.
One does not choose to be black or white. Becoming a holy roller is a conscious choice.
I love textbook stupid statements. IF God is knowable by reason then the fact it is conscious is only a choice like admitting 2+2=4. And if it isn't, then you don't have the superioty of intellect that supports your statement.
And of course you are wrong
“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.
THOMAS NAGEL
IF God is knowable by reason
Evidently an incorrect assumption
"IF God is knowable by reason then the fact it is conscious is only a choice like admitting 2+2=4."
And as Cassandra said to Wayne Campbell, "Yeah, and if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass when he hopped." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV9U23YXgiY&t=11s
Begging the question gets us nowhere, bye.
Bigotry isn't defined by the basis of the prejudice being immutable, champ.
Uh, no prejudice is immutable, Michael P.
Although the object of one's prejudice may be an immutable characteristic.
As Messrs. Rogers and Hammerstein wrote in South Pacific, "To hate all the people your relatives hate, you've got to be carefully taught." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAls_gUhlQw
So...you're happy being a bigot.
Are you also happy being sexist and homophobic? Since people can "change" their sex and sexual orientation too
The comment nesting sometimes makes it difficult to trace who is being responded to. Armchair, if you mean to suggest that I am bigoted, sexist and/or homophobic, you are way off base.
I have strong opinions, certainly. But I evaluate individuals as individuals with free agency. A person's voluntary choices and affiliations say something about that person. A person chooses to belong to a political party or a religious or quasi-religious (as in MAGA) cult. A person chooses whether to support a police state or not. A person chooses whether to minimize the horror of pederast clerics or not.
As François-Marie Arouet (a/k/a Voltaire) may have said, "Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities."
You are bigoted however. Your comments make it clear you believe in near textbook religious discrimination and bigotry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_discrimination
You make a point about "choice." But religious behavior is heavily influenced by genetics. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-born-to-be-religious/
Perhaps you'll argue "well they may be genetically inclined to be religious, but they choose to join a religion and I'm just discriminating against them based on that." That's the same argument used by homophobic people though. That they don't HAVE to engage in homosexuality, even if they are genetically inclined that way, and that's what we're discriminating against. The action.
The bigotry you claim not to practice, you're engaging in on a regular basis here in these comments.
"For the most part, people are either religious or atheists because they were raised that way." ... "By studying the correlations among thousands of individuals’ religious beliefs and measures of their thoughts and behaviors, scientists have discovered that certain personality types are predisposed to land on different spots of the religiosity spectrum."
This is nothing like what you claim
You just want to call someone a bigot. You do seem to love playing that card.
Because you're stupid?
Are you more or less surprised that the Walz administration spent a week scrubbing him from their websites before leaking this?
I am completely unsurprised that you're repeating this lie.
Facts aren't lies. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.
If NG thought about it for a minute, the fact that the perp was a wanna-be cop is far more significant.
According to Senator Mike Lee, the victim's and Tim Walz's own marxism caused their murders. They brought it on themselves
Evil begets evil.
Weren’t you advocating to shoot children the other day for the crime of having the wrong dad?
Hasn't he also been advocating for the obliteration of all Palestinians as well? I cannot recall for sure. It's hard to keep up with all his hatreds
"Nuke Gaza" — Dr Ed.
You did say that, Ed.
Whatever his politics, religion, etc, I'm sure he agreed with you about something.
That's just like shooting the people yourself, man.
It looks like the political assassin in Minnesota had “no kings” rally signs, was a democrat, and likely gay or trans.
Why am I not surprised?
It looks like the bot is programmed to repeat already fully debunked lies. I am totally unsurprised.
Nothing was "debunked" crazy Dave. The disinformation is strong with you, but craziness is only an asset at a no kings rally.
As an aside, the insult you parrot reminds me of the way the buffalo bill character in Silence of the Lambs would address his victims. As "its." Rather a sick perverse way to insult someone, but you seem to enjoy it. And you have a lot of democrat company.
Has Tulsi Gabbard re-shot her WWIII video, yet?
The fire-bombing of Toyko was far worse than the nuking of Hiroshima. It killed more, it maimed more, and it killed more cruelly.
I'm disappointed with Gabbard -- this is basic history.
If it were basic history you wouldn't have to post it. And this is anyway the fallacy that I might best illustrate by
"what smells worse 1 ton of horseshit or 1 ton and 5 pounds?"
Utterly fallacious to put an immaterial thing like suffering on a thermometer scale. And quite inhuman cold and tasteless
The alternative to Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't peace. It was a massive invasion of the Japanese mainland (probably with Russia landing in the north, and we know how gentle they were), accompanied by a massive bombing campaign including many more raids like the fire bombing of Tokyo.
That's the thing about war. You can't win it unless you are willing and able to kill the enemy. If you aren't, then either the war will continue, or you will lose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945)
Far worse than nukes.
I agree. One thing that needs to be mentioned is that the fire bombing of Tokyo doesn't advance the concept of MAD, that's why it has a reduced role in history.
Dresden, General; don't forget Dresden.
Dresden was bad, there's no denying it. Tokyo was a whole other matter. In Dresden the majority of buildings were made of stone while in Tokyo they were wood. Tokyo was also much larger with very little terrain features to slow the fires down.
Dresden was not a legitimate military target. British historian Paul Johnson has called the bombing “the greatest Anglo American moral disaster of the war against Germany.”
I'll debate that.
Paul Johnson, the man who wrote that the "demonisation" of General Pinochet was "the most successful and mendacious propaganda exercise of the 20th century," is not a moral authority on literally anything.
Looks like Trump might take a lesson from Netanyahu. Beleaguered in office? Plunge your nation into wars. Better still, do it together.
Trump ought to think twice. Before any U.S. attack on Iran, what prospect can there be, long-term, to prevent a Middle East nuclear arms race.
By what means, and for how long, will the U.S. assure itself against terrorist nuclear retaliation? What measures can suffice to do that, less than full and continuous political control of Iran? All of it, not just Tehran.
Decades ago, while the Cold War was still hotly contested, Theodore B. Taylor was America’s leading expert on the design of fission bombs. He made it a point to ignore thermonuclear weapons, to experiment instead with all the ways to adapt fission weapons to multiple objectives. Those turned out to be astonishingly various.
Fission bombs could be made large or small, with yields ranging from megaton-range, downward into low single-digit kilotons. Their physical sizes could be proportionately reduced, at least down to a size and shape about like a golf bag, and almost as portable. Fission bombs could be tailored to direct and focus destructive effects, like shaped-charge conventional explosives. Their energy could be released in widely varying wavelengths, tailored by a designer to optimize a broad range of destructive outcomes.
Most of all, Taylor discovered fission bombs were easy to make. Astonishingly easy, as he told New Yorker writer John McPhee, who came to know Taylor well, and who discussed such issues with Taylor at length.
McPhee’s resulting book, The Curve of Binding Energy, is one someone capable to read simple, eloquent prose should study, and brief Trump on what it explains.
Four of Taylor’s observations:
1. It took only one Manhattan Project to make fission explosives readily available world-wide. Nobody else since has needed any such massive effort, because the Manhattan Project solved all the difficult engineering challenges. It reduced bomb-making obstacles to a single question. Can you get your hands on enough bomb grade fissile material to form a critical mass in a Hiroshima style gun-detonated device? If you can, home-garage conventional technology is all that is required to build a workable bomb.
2. By the time McPhee interviewed Taylor, Taylor could report that since the Manhattan Project, every known effort to produce a fission bomb had succeeded on the first try.
3. Commercial nuclear power generation has made plutonium in enormous quantities, measured in at least tens of thousands of lightly-guarded critical masses world-wide. For instance, every commercial nuclear reactor site in the U.S., active or retired, sits surrounded by hundreds of critical masses of plutonium stored in casks of spent reactor fuel.
4. Although a plutonium implosion bomb is far harder to engineer and build than a Hiroshima-style gun bomb, plutonium used in a gun-style device would still deliver a fizzle yield sufficient, for instance, to knock down the World Trade Center. That was the specific example Taylor chose to illustrate the point, before any attack on the World Trade center had happened.
Suppose a decapitated Iranian state, with Teheran fully, “controlled” by occupying U.S. and Israeli forces. How long would it take Iranians in the uncontrolled hinterlands of that immense country to get a critical mass of U235, or enough plutonium to do fizzle attacks at will?
It could take as little as the time it takes to fly a cargo plane from North Korea. Assume Iran has not already made and hidden beyond possibility of discovery enough critical masses to do nuclear terrorist retaliation. How can the U.S. be sure it does not already have ready access to critical masses which exist in other countries?
Perhaps Trump can be persuaded to give that some thought? If that seems ridiculous, maybe it is past time to get America’s mad king into some domicile safer for the nation than the White House.
By 12-Points, Voters Support Trump Using National Guard to Quell L.A. Riots
And shooting the LA rioters....
Well, that's comforting.
Your logorrhea problem is back.
There won't be occupying US (or Israeli) troops in Iran. You can rest easy.
There could be boots on the ground to secure nuclear material, both from civilian contamination and proliferation, that might be prudent.
I do not think we should send any peacekeepers or combat troops.
I would support a scheme for a civilian weapons distribution. Something like provide any woman between 18 and 40 a concealable 9mm pistol, with at least 3 mags and a 100 rounds.
Kazinski — Your paragraphs are bizarrely at odds with each other. How, without military occupation, would you arm Iranian women? How, with military occupation, would you prevent those Iranian women from shooting American troops?
You write as if you think Iran is some MAGA-infested version of Ohio. Why do that?
Stephen Israel already has the networks to kill anyone anywhere in Iran at anytime, and they don't have troops on the ground.
It will be a lot easier now with a severe downgrading of regime cohesiveness, loss of confidence, and corresponding increase in hopes of vast numbers of Iranians that want the mullahs out.
I don't think would be hard to flood Iran with weapons, Look at Afghanistan for an example, and we had vastly more resources and organization trying to prevent supply there than Iran has now.
And we would have the benefit of not having troops on the ground, to be vulnerable to the weapons.
I don't think the mullahs would last long.
The only help we would have to provide is to continue to degrade regime capabilities via drone and standoff strikes.
In short, just like Cuba, before the Bay of Pigs.
If the US had bombed the entire Cuban high command to smithereens, destroyed their Air Force, blew up their air defenses, and had not sponsored an attempted invasion by expats, then this would have been exactly like the Bay of Pigs.
Since exactly 0 of those things actually happened, it's not like the Bay of Pigs in any recognizable fashion.
Heedless — An invasion of Iran—by the U.S. or anyone we aid or sponsor—is the catastrophe to be prevented.
Bombing will not subdue Iran, any more than it could have subdued China in 1949. Too little dependence on bomb-vulnerable targets in both cases. Bombing is not a credible threat to goat herders.
Iran is not dependent on Tehran in the same way the U.S. is dependent on its big cities. Perhaps you are not old enough to remember the ferocity with which Iran rejected the Shah. That ferocity found its base in the countryside, not in Tehran.
If there is an invasion, what will happen will be terrorist retaliation against the U.S. Iran is a nation infamous for nursing abiding grudges, which the U.S. will be powerless to ameliorate—just as it could do nothing to prevent the fall of the Shah, and the mass murder of his loyalists.
Years ago, Iran was said to be only a month or two away from achieving a fission bomb. Maybe they have not done that yet. If they have, and have failed to store a few critical masses with allies abroad, then they have been derelict.
But no matter, Iran has enough allies hostile to the U.S., and similarly fearful of the U.S. It will become possible to launch a terrorist nuclear attack against the U.S. from some foreign ally of Iran. That could be arranged even if Iran remained fully occupied. The U.S. will command no more obedience from the Iranian countryside than it got from the Taliban.
Military power capable to prevent that is not realistically available. Nor is preventing it even the objective of either Netanyahu or Trump. Both want war to empower themselves.
Netanyahu risks prison without it. Trump is in a pinch politically, because his base is catching on that they were suckered, and Trump has no way to predict once a slide from personal obedience starts, how far it will go.
That will likely depend on electoral vulnerabilities among Trump's minions. They have already seen that for colleagues, loyalty to Trump delivered little protection at the polls. Trump's base may be happy to back him, but blame his supporters for every feckless screw-up on campaign promise delivery.
Those screw-ups just increase, with almost all of them coming with more legal liability for Trump's closest associates. At some point, loyal service to a mad king ceases to be wise personal policy. Trump fears slippage could release an avalanche. War looks good to him as a distraction.
You are describing Japan with its GOD-KING and it did work there.
Emperor Hirohito’s declaration that he was not a deity came on January 1, 1946, during a radio address following Japan’s surrender in World War II. This announcement marked a significant shift in the Japanese imperial ideology, which had long held that the emperor was divine.
Victor Davis Hansen jas a better take:
“If we had this conversation five years ago,” he said, “and I said to you, the Iranian nation that is huge compared to Israel, ten times the population, the Iranian nation has lost all control of the Houthi terrorists, and they are themselves neutered…”
“They're gone as a Hamas, as a fighting force. The formidable, the terrifying Hezbollah cadres, they're inert.” “There is no more Syria, the Assad dynasty, the pro-Iranian, the Syria. It's in chaos. But whatever the chaos is, seems to be anti-Iranian.”
The collapse is strategic, not just symbolic. Hanson noted that the so-called “Shia crescent” connecting Tehran to the Mediterranean is no longer intact.
“Lebanon is free of Iranian influence. So is Syria. Gaza, a de facto, will be.” “Iran itself, the formidable powerhouse of the Middle East that evoked terror all over, has no defenses.”
“They have dismantled all of the Iranian missile defenses. They have dismantled the terrorist hierarchy. They have dismantled the people who are responsible for the nuclear program.”
https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1935494191951347993?t=HMIrZZ9ph8iSD7vEEpk2Mg&s=19
In this day and age, middle east triumphalism.
I dunno, man.
Iran is a vile evil terrorist “nation,”governed by a death cult. The world should be daily sending thanks to Israel. Instead, the obnoxious press ignores Iranian atrocities, like targeting an Israeli hospital with a ballistic missile. Although the outrage never stopped over the false report of Israel bombing a Gaza hospital. That fake news was the crime of the century but i guess killing jews is A OK, if you’re a repulsive antisemite.
Not like Cuba at all, dipshit.
Kaz, neither Israel nor America will occupy Iran. Isn't happening.
I do think that were Iran "bombed into submission" Israel would want to assure that the fissile material were removed
Nico — Indeed. And not removed to Israel by unsubmissive Iranians, by surprise.
Trump solved the Middle East!
Maybe Netanyau did.
Do you think anyone else wants to step up into Iran's shoes as their primary antagonist?
Without Iran Hamas can't revive, nor Hezbollah.
The Gulf Arab States and Egypt have reconciled themselves to Israel.
Hopefully this does provide a road to longlasting peace.
Well that's the point Lathrop.
Isreali and US intelligence determined that they did not think Iran had a bomb yet, or stock of sufficiently enriched uranium to build a bomb, so now would be the time to stop their program.
Iran only has one commercial nuclear reactor, and one "research" reactor.
Iran most likely did not have an assembled nuclear device. They certainly had sufficient material for several weapons.
I think you're underestimating the problem, which is not building a bomb once you have the material, but instead obtaining the material. Which isn't "Uranium", but instead a specific isotope of Uranium.
U235 is an isotope of Uranium, and most Uranium is U238. Separating two isotopes that differ by so little in atomic weight is really difficult; You can separate H2 from H1 in your kitchen, but need complex and energy hungry equipment to separate U235 from U238. Isotopic separation is most of the work in building an atomic bomb! You're not going to do THAT in the hinterland, and most if not all of Iran's already enriched Uranium is going to be buried in radioactive underground ruins.
You can build a bomb with plutonium, sure, but even there the isotope matters somewhat, and while it's mostly just chemistry, it's chemistry performed on materials, (Spent fuel rods) radioactive enough to kill you very quickly.
Now, sure, NK could send them the material. NK could send them the bomb, for that matter. But taking out Iran's nuclear program didn't make that easier.
The easiest thing to do is a dirty conventional bomb, that just makes an area radioactive. Iran could build those in it's present condition. Iran could have built those a year ago, why didn't they?
Because they're not very useful unless your aim is to make genocide against your country actually popular with the world.
Bellmore — Read McPhee. Theodore Tailor laid it all out, with details on the chemistry required. Compared to his experience, your vague hints show only that you do not know what you are talking about. He anticipated and dispensed with the few objections you mention, and many more you did not mention.
What point do you hope to serve by urging an attack by the U.S. on Iran? Relief from nuclear threat? That hope went away when Trump dismantled the prior inspection agreement. It had prospect to postpone final progress toward bomb building, and seems to have done so while it lasted.
Add an active war now, and mere opacity will be replaced instantly with resourceful agency, on an emergency war footing. Iran cannot be militarily defeated. Not by Israel, not by the U.S., not by both combined. War advocacy against Iran is folly.
Stephen,
1) The chemistry isn't necessarily the problem for U-235 separation. It's the engineering. Replicating the engineering, and replicating it well...is a problem.
2) Nations don't publish failed nuclear tests. Here's one of North Korea's though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_Korean_nuclear_test
3) While plutonium is available, the acquisition, chemical extraction, and handling are not trivial by any means. If you have a nuclear plant entirely in your control...that's one thing. Trying to "steal" it from a nuclear plant? It's like trying to steal a blue whale. The Handling makes it problematic to do clandestinely.
4) A "Fizzle" attack is a lot of work for a little payoff. North Korea's fizzle was a 0.55 kt explosion. That's about $100,000 worth of ammonium nitrate. Big for sure...but wouldn't it be better to just use conventional explosives?
Big for sure...but wouldn't it be better to just use conventional explosives?
When has it ever been easy to use 500 tons of explosives all at once?
Thats the point of a nuclear device. It greatly scales down the amount of mass you need to move and blow up to get the desires effect.
500t sounds like its not, but it really really is. It's roughly equal to 1000 Mk 84 low drag bombs. Thats more bombs than most air forces could carry at any given time.
Sure, but a crude gun type atomic bomb is a pretty big thing, not very easy to smuggle. Maybe you could build all the hardware but the "pits" in place, and just smuggle those, but radiation detectors at ports of entry are standard these days, and I'm guessing Israel is particularly thorough on that front. Not like the US with thousands of miles of poorly defended border; Smuggling one into the US would probably be feasible.
Why would anyone use a gun-type bomb in the 21st century?
In just about every way that matters it's harder to use a gun-type device than an implosion device.
Except one. The engineering on a gun-type device is much easier. With the implosion-type device, you need to carefully calibrate the explosives. With the gun-type device...you just need one explosive, pointing the "bullet" into the rest of the bomb.
It is unfathomable to me that a nation state would go to all of the effort to build a massive industrial base to acquire, chemically modify, and then enrich uranium while also skimping on even the minimal effort into engineering implosion weapons.
It's also unbelievable that Iran would build a warhead that couldn't be used on a ballistic missile.
Keep in mind that gun-type bombs are very inefficient, meaning that you need more fissile material per unit of explosive yield. Enriching that extra uranium is not free. Far from it.
Lathrop was positing that the bomb would be built by rag tag forces on the run or in hiding...
The good news for Iran (and bad news for Israel) is that Iran already did a ton of work on implosion devices.
True, but the bulk modulus of uranium is 3x that of delta plutonium; i.e, far more resistant to compression than stabilized plutonium. So the engineering of the implosion device is not simple, but Iran could certainly do it. However, building a couple of gun type devices would be fast as soon as the UF6 gas is converted to metal and machined, Yes, the burn efficiency was less than 1% in Little Boy, but it did its job.
"It is unfathomable to me that a nation state..."
Except one nation state did. The United States in 1945.
Yes, gun-type bombs are inefficient. Yes, you need more fissile material per unit. Yes, it's not free. But...there's a reason countries do nuclear tests. That effort into implosion-type weapons often requires a real-world test. And...if circumstances are such that you need the weapon RIGHT NOT and don't have time or resources to do that test. Well, sometimes the less efficient solution can be just a little faster to develop.
You're spending too much time around David.
A modern nation state, not the first one to develop a nuclear weapon before implosion weapons were perfected. Iran has been working on implosion devices.
If you want an example of a modern nation state, take a look at South Africa's nuclear weapons program in the 1980s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Implosion devices require precision engineering. Slamming two chunks of uranium together at high speed could be done by an orangutan. The Manhattan project didn't even bother to test their gun-type bomb because they were so sure it would work.
If you are a corrupt, theocratic dictatorship that has murdered or exiled most of your competent scientists (and Israel has blown up a bunch of those who stayed), the orangutan option may seem like a safer bet.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/06/18/wednesday-open-thread-21/?comments=true#comment-11093585
Brett, Little Boy would fit and is light enough to be carried by an Iranian IRBM
No, I don't think it would either from a mass perspective or from a dimensions perspective.
Here's an example: the working bits of Little Boy are over 3 meters long. The total length of a Shahab-3 IRBM is less than 16 meters, and the warhead/RV section is somewhere around 2.5m in length, and the warhead section includes things like guidance computers, gyroscopes, and thrusters.
I stand corrected. A little Iranian Boy would have to be redesigned
Enriching from 60% to 90% would reduce the weight of metal and explosive by 30%. There would be no need for tails fins. New high strength light materials would help. But yes a redesign would be needed.
"Thats the point of a nuclear device. It greatly scales down the amount of mass you need to move and blow up to get the desires effect."
I mean, there's a cost-benefit analysis going on. At a certain point, absolutely. The Hiroshima bomb was 15 kt. But...0.5 kt?
The lift capacity of a C-5 Super Galaxy has a lift capacity of 0.14 kt. A single train freight car? A little over that. Use some RDX instead of TNT, and that's two or 3 freight cars or 2 or 3 C-5's. And sure, they're bigger. But that should be much easier to get a hold of than a "fizzle nuke." Now, if you're talking 100 C-5s (a Hiroshima equivalent)...then yeah. The Nuke makes much more sense. But 2-3? It's a much closer call.
The lift capacity of a C-5 Super Galaxy has a lift capacity of 0.14 kt.
I'm trying to think of a use case for ".14kt" in a single unitary explosive being chucked out of the back of a C-5, and for the life of me, I can't. We could do it cheaper and easier with existing systems.
The GBU-57's BLU-127 warhead only has a little over 5000lbs of explosive, but the whole weapon weighs over 30,000 pounds.
Most of the rest of the 30,000lbs is actually just inert metal that allows it to penetrate deep underground before detonating.
"I'm trying to think of a use case for ".14kt" in a single unitary explosive being chucked out of the back of a C-5, and for the life of me I can't"
You're thinking strictly military. I also never said anything about "chucked out the back". One potential use? Imagine Iran borrows an Airbus A380 (It's got in the same ballpark for carrying capacity as a C5). They mark it as a legitimate passenger jet (but no passengers). Fill it to the brim with C4. Land it in Heathrow. Pilot gets off the plane. Walks away. Hits the trigger. That's about 0.15 kt of TNT equivalents going off. That takes out a serious chunk of the airport.
Armchair, The US built a 0.075 kt device the W-48 artillery shell. The US now has a 0,3 kt option in the stockpile.
While one can build lower yield devices, that is contingent on having a running nuclear program up and going.
The point that was being made was that the cost, expense, and risk of developing/stealing a nuclear program/nuke for "just" a 0.5 kt fizzle may be outweighed by the advantages of going with conventional explosives.
Trucking around 140 tonnes of conventional explosive makes no sense at all, ecpecially when 140 pieces of 1 ton explosives can cause far more mischief.
The son of the former Shah admits that he is no Stephen Lathrop and that no one in the world knows as much on the subject but he went on to say
Iran's Reza Pahlavi says 100-day transition plan in place if Khamenei falls Pahlavi also directed his message to the military, police, and state workers, many of whom he said have contacted him in recent days.
I didn't completely read Lathrops post. Too long and didn't get to a point in time.
There are other engineering issues that were glossed over I think, besides purifying the Uranium to weapons grade (which is hard). The radioactivity screws with electronics. Device geometry matters too (for example an implosion device relies on *extremely precise* detonation geometry). There are other configurations.
Bottom line: If it was that easy, Iran would have made one (they have enough Uranium), and if they made one, they would have already used it (they would have at detonated it for show purposes).
Even some of NKs test nukes have been duds.
Yes, there are many, many books that describe how to make a nuke (thank you, first amendment), but its just not as easy to do as it is to write about in the comments section of reason.
Iran could have made a gun-type design with 60% U-235. There are many reasons not to do a "show test."
Funny you should mention a "dirty bomb". Do you know what the standard procedure for disarming a nuclear weapon? Blow it up. Works on implosion type bombs as well as gun bombs. You have a small explosion from the bomb's own explosives, but, there is less damage and radiation than a nuclear explosion. Hollywood always gets it wrong. By the way, I was on a nuclear weapons load team in the Navy. Part of the training was where to put the shaped charges to render our bomb useless. Another point. The only time we became part of SIOP was when we were in the Eastern Mediterranean on a carrier, so if we would have had to use those charges............
That only works on devices that have permissive action links and that are not booby-trapped.
It's very hard to create a device that won't at least squib if subject to a directional explosion that is not part of its implosion sequence.
Implosion is hard to do precisely because it requires, well, precise placement and timing of the explosives. Blow the device up outside that set-up, and it is very unlikely to go critical.
The most that I can say here is that "very unlikely to go critical" is dependent on the device design and what fraction of the design yield that would be intolerable.
Implosion devices can't go critical unless the uranium or plutonium is significantly compressed.
It might be possible to engineer a sloppy, overly large uranium sphere that would go critical with a less thorough implosion, but such a bombs would be far closer to criticality in its ground state. It would put off significant heat and radiation and would degrade the rest of the device rapidly. It might even melt down.
I don't know about the melting bit especially not for uranium for which the spontaneous decay rate is low. Your comment about criticality is the whole point of implosion devices, the required degree depends in detail on the design This general topic is one of long concern and study for decades. There are many complicated issues and considerations.
It works on all of them. The charges don't take out the PAL, they distort the precise geometry that is needed to create a nuclear explosion.
" they distort the precise geometry that is needed to create a nuclear explosion." If the device has a PAL it will not explode unless authorized. So yes, you can below the device up without a nuclear detonation. The issue is whether you can prevent any nuclear yield on a device without such a device and which is not one point safe.
The WTC had the structural integrity of an empty beer can. It was nothing but the external walls and balanced load.
Gun type does not work with plutonium -- and it was an implosion bomb )fat man) that was tested in New Mexico.
What prevents me from building nukes in my garage? Similar consequences would work with Iran.
And the Iranians want to be free.
FWIW years ago New Scientist published an article showing hoe you could convert your house into a nuclear bomb. They were widely criticised but pointed out that the technicals were already widely available and the challenge was always to get the uranium - which they did not tell you how to do.
What is very easy, IF you can get your hands on enough fissile material is to have a criticality accident that will kill you.
It will work after a fashion if you consider getting several tons of yield as working. But the basic comment is okay. Even weapons grade plutonium cannot be assembled fast enough to get even 0.01% burn of the nuclear fuel.
You're right again. Take an empty beer can, set a brick on top of it. It will hold the brick. Raise the brick to 1 inch above the top of the can, drop the brick. The can will buckle. You can do the same with a Styrofoam cup.
"By what means, and for how long, will the U.S. assure itself against terrorist nuclear retaliation? What measures can suffice to do that, less than full and continuous political control of Iran? All of it, not just Tehran."
We did a pretty good job dismantling the theocracy of Japan...
And how may Americans died in the process? Try thinking for a change, Ed.
a stupid post from a childless wealthy insulated misanthrope. You don't like Jews, okay...why not leave at that , this isn't an audience of children
Most commenters here are childish misanthropes. And virulent antisemites. This first comment today is from one of the worst. He also doesn’t care much for Christians, or the unborn. But he really despises Christians.
Riva, I am myself a Christian believer. I was reared among fundamentalists, and I refer to myself, only partially in jest, as a recovering Campbellite. Jesus, the Christ, was and is a wise and wonderful teacher.
I have serious problems with those who have perverted the teachings of Jesus. As the Mahatma Gandhi said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
Not guilty is often unashamed to post pure nonsense. After that Gandhi utterly retracted that statement when he heard about Fr Damien of Molokai
"The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, counts by the thousands those who after the example of Fr. Damien have devoted themselves to the victims of leprosy. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism."
Apparently, Fr. Damien was a huge inspiration for starting Gandhi on the path to being Gandhi.
NOt guilty, what a lazy moron you are, it's your laziness that makes you disgusting
To describe Christ as a mere “teacher” and to define Him through Mahatma Gandhi confirms you as a fraud.
Absurd. Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear war weapons. Period. Paragraph. End of story.
And just curious, what advanced enrichment facilities are they using in these hinterlands? Something they quickly stuffed into a backpack before running away? And these “hinterlands” where they’re plotting are immune from a bunker buster bomb? Nowhere is immune from a bunker buster bomb. That’s why they call them bunker buster bombs.
Stephen, I agree with your basic question/premise. However, I have a couple of comments & corrections to your quoting of Taylor: 1) Fission devices have been made as small as 75 tons (the W-48 artillery shell) 2) Fission alone does not scale to the megaton range. Some level of fusion is needed. However a pure fission device could be as somewhat larger than 100 kilotons. That takes a rather sophisticated design. 3) Taylor is correct that getting a fission device at ~20 to 40 kilotons is easy. 4) Except for EMP, the damaging effects of nuclear explosions scale with the cube root of the yield. 20 - 40 kiloton weapons are sufficient for every thing except hard target kill with inaccurate missiles or bombers. 5) Trying to build a fizzile weapon from reactor grade plutonium is a fool's game unless the country is very sophisticated in nuclear weapon design. 6) The dismantling of the Iranian program does mean that all of the uranium enriched to greater than 20% needs to be recovered. 7) Taylor's main point is correct. There is no need for a proliferator to build thermonuclear weapons.
The engineering of Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb, is very simple. Even accurate enough drawings exist. Iran could have built such a device long ago. Certainly it now has enough 60% uranium to build as many as 10 such weapons. An "Little Iranian Boy" would fit in and could be delivered by present Iranian ballistics missiles. But like the Hiroshima bomb the device would be less than 1% efficient in its use of fissile material.
The so-called "intelligence community experts" and Tulsi Gabbard are wrong. Rafael Grossi is correct.
Trump's decision is not an easy one to make.
Nico — Your numbered list shows you have not read McPhee's book, or else did so too quickly and missed some of Taylor's quoted assertions. Whether to trust you or quoted Taylor on disputed assertions . . . ? I doubt the answer matters much. I take it we agree it is a supremely dangerous situation.
Two indisputable facts ought to get priority focus:
1. There are copious and growing amounts of bomb-grade fissile material in privately-held inventories around the world. Shipping and processing (or reprocessing) that stuff is an established private industry. Amounts equivalent to many critical masses are now unaccounted losses from inventories. The world-wide private market in fissile materials is not effectively under any national or international control.
It may be better regulated in the U.S. than elsewhere, but probably not well enough regulated. I expect if it were properly regulated, everyone would know how it works, what the regulations are, how compliance is tested, and what the results of such tests show. Who knows any of that, or where to go to find out?
2. Fanatics abound who are willing to sacrifice their lives to accomplish a grandiose attack against perceived enemies. People willing to die to accomplish an attack are able to accomplish some objectives too dangerous to attract those more cautious.
For me, those two points make improvement in controls on fissile materials by far the most important objective among any policy questions which touch on that issue. As in the present case with Iran, every other political question ought to be subordinated. I do not think that is the way either Israel or the U.S. is treating the current problem.
Stephen, I did not read McPhee's book, but I do know a great deal about the topic. So I won't say that I quoted Taylor or misquoted you. I was just clarifying given that it is too easy for people who have been "in the business" to take for granted the infrastructure that makes things easier at a weapons design lab.
With respect to your point 1, I doubt that there is much weapons grade plutonium in private hands in in countries that routinely reprocess fuel rods. However, there is abundant reprocessed plutonium that is held by industry. Is that a worry? Yes. I agree with you about that. Proliferating nation states want weapons grade Pu for their stockpile, a nuclear terrorist won't care.
As for your point 2, there are undoubtedly such people. Should we worry about them? Yes.
" I do not think that is the way either Israel or the U.S. is treating the current problem." I think that is not the case with respect to the U.S. This administration (and previous) wants the Iranian program dismantled under IAEA safeguards just as the South African program was dismantled and the enriched uranium blended down to 3 - 5% reactor fuel.
Nico, you have contradicted quoted-Taylor point blank on several questions of fact, not just opinions. For instance McPhee says Taylor told him Taylor succeeded in designing an all-fission bomb—not a fusion-boosted bomb— that tested with a low megaton range yield. Taylor did say, according to McPhee, that it was a difficult technical challenge to accomplish.
Thus, it was not like other simple gun-type bombs which could literally be designed by an intelligent amateur, and fabricated using techniques Taylor detailed. Taylor cited needed equipment, vendors who sourced the equipment to the public, specific chemical techniques and physical processes, and mentioned modest budget requirements. All predicated on availability from poorly controlled stocks of fissile materials used in ordinary commerce. The one caveat is that this was all posited more than 30 years ago, so details on what could be done then will probably differ in some ways from what can be done now.
Given your confidence that you understand these issues thoroughly, I suggest that maybe you especially should read McPhee's little book. He details as well how Taylor in the 1990s repeatedly disconcerted others who thought they understood things which Taylor could demonstrate they had misjudged.
So how is Trump "plunging" us into war? To be honest, in my opinion we should have made Iran into a glass paved self-lighting parking lot in 1980. When you look at all of things that have happened over the last 45 years, that Iran sponsored, we have been at war with them since 1980. Some of those events killed friends of mine. Some of them had my ass getting shot at. (I won't go into my opinion of our State Department at this time)
Consider Iran as a military target.
It is one of the world's least accessible nations. It has a population of ~ 85 million. Of that population, ~ 20 million live in cities with populations greater than 1 million, with half of those in Tehran, which is by far the largest city. Those cities are conceivable military targets. The rest of the nation, not so much.
The rest of the nation is covered by mountains and high desert, distributed among provinces almost no one except Iranians and geographers have ever heard of.
It's geographic extent, superimposed on the U.S. stretches from southeastern Montana to Mobile Alabama. The boundary of that superimposition covers almost all of: Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi, along with smaller parts of numerous other states.
The Iranians speak languages few Americans understand. They cherish allegiance to cultures few Americans understand.
In short, Iran is a nation much like Afghanistan in extent and geography, but almost three times as large, more populous, and with even more forbidding geography.
The notion to subdue such a place militarily is not even slightly conceivable in any realistic framework of U.S. popular support. To the extent such support could be found, it would be on the basis of drastic under-estimates of the time and difficulty of nation building that project would entail—not less than an all-out commitment lasting many generations. The youngest Americans alive today would not have grandchildren who could hope to see that project completed.
It will not work.
I don't think that is anyones plan.
If there is a plan its to completely decapitate the regime and make its restive population ungovernable by the remnants of the theocratic police state.
If youve been paying attention there is a very large segment of the population that wants the mullahs gone. Doesn't mean they want us, but I think a clear majority wants new leadership, and a secular government.
This is from 2023:
"An opinion survey involving 158,000 people in Iran showed that more than 80 percent of respondents reject the Islamic Republic and prefer a democratic government.
The Netherlands-based Gamaan institute conducted the survey from December 21-31, which also included a sample of 42,000 respondents in the diaspora, revealed very similar attitudes between those in the country and abroad."
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202302036145
Heaven forbid, the UN could actually do something useful for once and go in and help them form a popular government.
And the Arab states would LOVE to see someone other than the crazy Iranian mullahs running Iran.
The UN would be useless there. Countries have to build their own governmental structure that are consistent with their own culture.
Kazinski — To read you, it's like Afghanistan never happened, to Britain, to Russia, or to the United States. Melville mentioned war in Afghanistan in Moby Dick.
As a military and foreign relations problem, Iran is Afghanistan, but bigger and harder.
Iranian hinterlanders will not get surveyed among the Iranian diaspora. The urbanites are outnumbered by the hinterlanders. They are pastoralists, not would-be Ohioans.
The Iranian urbanites are by no means advocating for U.S. culture either.
You are spouting nonsense and nation building. As usual, that recurring source of bad advocacy is more about domestic political advantage than about anything realistically in touch with the way the world works. But we now know from experience, in advance, nation building always looks easy.
You don't get it Lathrop, I am not advocating us troops on the gound or nation building. I am advocating providing weapons, and logistical support.
Look how fast the Taliban collapsed in Afghanistan in 2001 with almost no US troops in the country, our error there was putting troops in AFTER our objective was achieved.
...because Afghanistan would have turned out better if NATO had not sent in an occupation force?
It wasn't really about Afghanistan turning out better, anymore than attacking Japan during WWII was about Japan turning out better.
Both were, at a minimum, about making those countries better in the sense of "not a source of problems for the US".
You can learn.
"not a source of problems for the US"
A success then, neither Afghanistan or Iraq is a source of problems right now.
Afghanistan is back to status quo before 9-11. Whatta victory.
"Whatta victory."
Ok Napoleon, how were we going to stop the status quo from returning?
We were doing ok overall until your dude Obama "surged" to prove he was tough. Most US deaths were when he was president, for almost no gain.
I'm not saying we should have stayed in Afghanistan, genius. I'm saying we lost that war. It was not a success. It was never going to be a success. There was no path to the victory condition we sought. We wasted 20 years.
Other than too cowardly to pull out, Obama had nothing to do with it; that cake was baked the day we went in.
Not exactly status quo, there are no Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan now.
That was the initial objective of the war after all.
How can you tell that there are no Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan now?
Incidentally, I don't now if I would go so far as to say that the allies wasted 20 years. They gave the people of Afghanistan, or at least parts of Afghanistan, 20 years of relative freedom. That's better than not having freedom.
Would have turned out pretty much the same.
How do we know?
Because that's what happened when the Soviets bugged out of Afghanistan leaving almost no government and no peacekeeping force in the late 80's.
Deja vu all over again. But at least we would have wiped out a good chunk of al Qaeda first, and left a message about the consequences of being a terrorist haven.
The Soviets left Afghanistan much worse than it was when they got there.
And it wasn't Al Qaeda getting shot at in 2001. The Al Qaeda leadership wasn't found and murdered until 2011 (Bin Laden) and 2022 (Al-Zawahiri). The only Al Qaeda leader of any consequence who was killed during the Bush years, and indeed during the initial invasion, was Mohammed Atef.
It certainly was al Qaeda getting shot too, we started using Guantanamo as a prison for both al Qaeda and Taliban in January 2002.
The fact that their two highest leaders got away doesn't erase that we got most of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan very quickly. The battle of Tora Bora was in December 2001. From Wikipedia: "At the end of 2001, Al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of the Tora Bora region. Aerial bombardment ensued, including the use of large bombs known as daisy cutters."
Osama bin Laden survived for as long as he did because he was worth more alive than dead to President George W. Doofus and His Pet Goat.
Sure, the fact that somebody's backup driver spent 20 years tortured in GITMO was definitely a big win for the United States!
Iran was a stable British and then American colony. Afghanistan wasn't.
Wut?
How quickly you forget. While not close to being democratic the Shaw ran Iran with an iron fist and at least in the cities it was a first world country with women dressing in miniskirts and a reasonably well-educated population. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi basically dragged Iran kicking and screaming into the 20th century. I am not trying to defend his heavy-handed approach to governance - characterized by censorship, the suppression of dissent, and the brutal tactics of the SAVAK; just pointing out that it was stable.
Yes, the Shah ran Iran, not the British or the Americans.
He's right. The Soviets destabilized Iran. The reason that they went into Afghanistan was to secure an invasion route into Iran. The USSR wanted Iran's oil. The USSR is responsible for much of the destabilization of the Middle East. It was part of a one-two punch. Enable the environmental movement to reduce oil production in the US and get us dependent on oil from the Middle East. Then destabilize the Middle East to make the US expend resources to protect the flow of oil from the Middle East. Iran played an important role because of how they could threaten the Straights of Hormuz. The Palestinians were an artificial construct of the USSR.
Wow, that's a lot of alternative facts in just a few sentences. More fascinatingly, you start your comment with "He's right" before spouting a whole bunch of gibberish that doesn't seem to agree with anything said before by anyone in this thread.
Hey, the Greens aren't called "watermelons" for nothing. Their movement was subsidized by the USSR.
They're called that by right-wing redbaiting delusionophiles.
It's not for nothing; it's because that sort thinks everything they don't like is somehow Marxist.
"The reason that they went into Afghanistan was to secure an invasion route into Iran".
No. Afghanistan may have regional significance to the Soviets, But Soviet Turkmenistan had a long border with Iran, and the Soviets and Iran shared long coastlines on the Caspian Sea on the east with a long flat plain along its coast. And their was a Soviet Azerbaijan with a smaller but still extensive to the west of the Caspian sea, all told at least 1000 miles of border so there was no need to go through mountainous Afghanistan.
I posted this yesterday. Could this be the new face of Iran?
The new face of Iran?? An Iranian woman sends a message to the Islamic regime:
https://x.com/realMaalouf/status/1934944645538324485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1934944645538324485%7Ctwgr%5Eaef23118ca423775ac587f05762aa66c98251cac%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F726738%2F
That may or may not be an Iranian woman. She's not in Iran, so she's unlikely to be the face of Iran.
Maybe, but I did see a video of a indoor party where Iranians were watching the Israeli Air strikes celebrating,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8PpY4FgXz7Y
When I initially watched the dancing video I couldn't see where it was filmed, but I see there is context now.
And yet, Iran lies prostrate before Israel (a country of 12MM), like a goat before slaughter. Iran is powerless to stop Israel from systematically destroying their military and nuclear capability. Their people flee their cities like panicked deer. Their leaders are being violently killed.
Iran is the manyouk of the middle east.
Yes, and telling them that is definitely a great way to get them to do what you want.
Pax America.
I thought the Trumpist line was that nothing that happens overseas is your problem?
The Trumpist line is no living enemies.
Clearly...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/la-protests-injuries-1.7558111
That is literally the opposite of the Trumpist line. MAGA is isolationist.
That's the hot air to justify the curious stance re: Putin.
Whatever is really behind it, if anything, wouldn't apply to the mid east or anywhere else.
Martinned 3 hours ago Flag Comment Mute User Yes, and telling them that is definitely a great way to get them to do what you want.-
So was giving iran wads of cash - so that everyone could pretend iran stopped their nuclear program
There is consensus that the sanctions that have been in place for decades do have a significant effect on the ability of the regime to stay in power. Not enough to get them kicked out tomorrow, but enough that the regime worries about the sanctions, and about their effect on things like (youth) unemployment and growth, and would like to get rid of them. So it makes sense to use the sanctions as the carrot in a negotiation about nuclear non-proliferation.
You would think that someone who literally wrote the book on the Art of the Deal would understand that...
Trump only figuratively wrote that book.
He was aiming for the "Art of the Grift" but his publisher must have changed the title on him. We've seen him and his businesses fail repeatedly time and time again. The only "deal" he knows anything about is bankruptcy.
Nobody is asking Iran to do anything. Israel is doing what must be done. The 'asking' phase is over.
Iran is defeated.
The strong (Israel) will do what they will, and the weak (Iran, the manyouk) will suffer what they must. Iran's malignant actions over the course of decades brought them to utter defeat.
Iran is defeated without a single enemy soldier having set foot in the country? Could you be any more delusional?
“like a goat before slaughter”
Pretty fond of this one I gather.
“goat […] deer”
Is the dehumanizing rhetoric intentional?
So ???? Let them have a nuclear arsenal, turn it on us, and have some Iranian Stephen Lathrop write a pompous screed that ends "It will not work." When you are attacked you put up your arms, useless or not. The world cannot let Iran have nuclear weapons.
Lathrop did not say that. He did say that the US, UN, EU ideas of nation-building will not work.
I just hope Israel is not so besotted with Russia as we currently are, that they could do my boys in Ukraine a solid and knock out Iran's drone factories. I'd be quite pleased if that happened
that would be a useful bit of work for the world.
Even your attempt at an expression of compassion is overwhelmed by your feelings of contempt. Hate runs deep in your heart, Hobie, like somebody who's been severely hurt. Or are you just a born natural that way?
LOL! Thanks for the commentary, Indy! "The hell you will. He's got a two day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the grail already".
Silly uninformed nonsense
The last Reza Pahlavi didn't work out so well.
(Neither as Shah of Iran nor as boss of the Lupertazzi family.)
The Air India 787 Crash is interesting.
The Ram Air Turbine (RAT) was deployed -- that's automatic and a response to (a) catastrophic electric failure, (b) catastrophic hydraulic failure, and/or (c) loss of both engines. It's also a "fly by wire" plane, which means that engine throttle settings are electric wires and not mechanical cables.
AND the Air Conditioning is electric and not bypass air from the engines -- this a selling point because it is more efficient to do this.
AND the Air Conditioning wasn't working in the plane.
Multiple (2-3?) Air India 787s have aborted trips and returned due to unexplained "problems."
Landing gear is designed to drop via gravity, you need electric and hydro to raise it. Without both, it don't go up.
The black boxes were recovered several days ago, and we haven't heard anything. Indian media is now saying that there is a plot to blame the pilots to protect Boeing.
When it first came out, the 787 had battery fires.
What's the possibility we have another 737-MAX issue here???
What's the possibility that we have poor maintaince by Air India and they are taking a play out of the trial lawyer playbook by blaming Boeing?
It's also a "fly by wire" plane, which means that engine throttle settings are electric wires and not mechanical cables.
I always felt that was a poor choice of words. Prior to electronic control, the joystick and pedals were connected by wires, cables, going back to the Wright Brothers.
You've been flying by wire for over a hundred years.
Taking a step back, it is fascinating to see how the Trump administration wanted to have an insolationist foreign policy where other people's problems aren't the US's problems, without understanding that that means that you can no longer tell foreign countries to do things or not do things.
So suddenly you have people like Putin and Netanyahu who get told by Trump to not throw bombs on Ukraine and Iran, respectively, only for them to do it anyway. Why wouldn't they? What is Trump going to do about it? Impose sanctions? Why wouldn't they call his bluff?
And so Trump and his friends end up having to beat a hasty retreat, by either pretending that they didn't ask what they asked (and in fact asked the opposite), or by just hiding the entire event in the black hole of history. So the whole question of Ukraine is a non-topic in the White House, they're pretending that the entire country doesn't exist, that Trump never said he would do a deal on day 1, that he never asked Putin to dial it down, never met the man etc. And with respect to Iran the White House is pretending that Trump has always been in favour of blowing the place up, and has never tried to do a deal (sorry, a Deal).
It's kind of like how the Brexiteers in the UK used to enjoy having their cake and eat it too. Trying to do two (or more) contradictory things, and then being frustrated when it turns out that isn't possible.
Nuance. Look it up.
Don't ever mention "nuance" in reference to Trump in the same sentence ever again.
Be man enough to admit that apparatchiks such as yourself are the people whom Trump wishes to see unemployed.
Nuance!
"Bomber" Harris knew how to deal with Iran.
Maybe we should just nuke Tehran.
Or, better, simply dismantle Iran's economy and infrastructure, bit by bit. Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran!
Geez Ed. You have to be brain dead. What is with you frequent calls for "nuking" places?
He is hoping to get promoted from Keyboard Warrior 2nd Class to Keyboard Warrior First Class.
The US should take out the Fordow site and then pull back.
More isolationist foreign policy, but Trump was consistent about Iran not having nuclear weapons.
"MONTAGE: Over 16 straight minutes of President Donald Trump saying that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
"Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon... They can't have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. They can't have a nuclear weapon. We're not going to allow that."
https://x.com/SteveGuest/status/1934808469112070559?t=T-rpb04l-7YKyblLnlE3Ug&s=19
I don't think "consistent" means what you think it means...
Sixteen straight minutes for Trump is quite remarkable.
So Trump is just copying Biden?
Biden says US would use military force against Iran as a 'last resort' to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon
https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-us-use-force-against-iran-nuclear-program-as-last-resort-2022-7
No, Trump is not copying Biden. Biden rewarded Iran with billions of dollars to fund its proxy wars against Israel. Biden was taken for a fool by the mullahs for the 4 years of his presidency.
Yes biden was fooled by the mullahs and by former obama administration officials. Obama's similar actions were done with a good understanding the of eventual long term results.
You're saying Obama and his administration wanted a nuclear Iran.
Is this Obama was a sekret Muslim rewarmed?
Oh, there are lots of possible explanations for wanting a nuclear Iran. The chief commonality is that they're all stupid, nobody but Iran wants a nuclear Iran.
Much more likely that Obama didn't think the money would finance their nuclear program.
The problem is, everybody knows that if you dump money by the ton on Iran, they WILL use it for something nasty, and he decided to dump money literally by the ton on them. Went to great lengths to dump metric tons of money on them.
The unavoidable conclusion is that he didn't mind them doing something nasty, just thought it would be done to people he didn't much like.
I mean, there's plenty of writeups of the Iran deal, including how hard it is to hide nuclear enrichment work.
But the right's really gone hard in an alternate reality where unfreezing is paying and where Iran are like nuclear enrichment ninjas.
Your unavoidable conclusion is the usual Brett speculation-to-confident-delusion-about-reality.
Wasn’t that just money returned to them?
“The unavoidable conclusion”
It’s pretty avoidable. They most likely thought they were buying something.
No, he did not say that. Why do you lie by deliberately distorting what commenters write? He did say that Obama's team knew that Iran was only delayed but not prevented. Evidently the negotiating team did not know about the weaponization tests in 2002 and 2003, but they were convinced that Iran's intentions were to build nuclear weapons.
It's a possibility. More likely it was how much of those pallets of money made it's way back to Obama and Biden?
So you're a pure tin foil person. Evidence not required.
Pres Obama is the one who cut the horrendous deal with Iran. He could have held out for 'no enrichment' but political considerations drove his decision-making; he wanted the credit and glory. He gets credit for cutting a truly atrocious deal with Iran.
I think Pres Obama got what he could with the time he had, and that approach lacked strategic patience.
None of that makes sense.
Could he have held out for "no enrichment?" Sure. Would he have gotten it? Probably not. Amazing how many people think if only they had been in charge they would have easily negotiated a much better deal. An experienced, smart, and highly successful M&A guy once told me that no one ever likes the other guy's deal. True here also.
In fact, rather than RW propaganda world, the agreement was not "atrocious," no matter what Trump says, and worked reasonably well.
'Probably not', 'Could have', 'would have'....uh huh.
We know reality. The reality was that it was an atrocious deal, and Pres Obama paid the mad Mullahs billions in cash. We got bupkes.
As commentator stated - everyone knew the reality. Obama paid the mullahs wads of cash and then pretended the deal was working. Working only if you pretend a few years delay was the meaningful definition of "working"
Indeed, the consensus is that Trump was and is pretty much trying to make the same deal with Iran. (As with NAFTA, he'll make the same deal but rebrand it and pretend he did something.)
Yeah, XY. When talking about unknowns I tend to avoid expressions of certainty, unlike you, who are not afraid to make definitive statements, no matter how baseless, and how little you know of the subject.
How do you know this "reality?" You heard Trump say so?
> None of that makes sense.
Indeed not. The deal allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67%. Trump withdrew from the deal, and Iran proceeded to enrich a bunch of uranium to 60%. (Nuclear weapons require uranium encriched to around 90%.) If Trump thought that by withdrawing from the deal he could negotiate a new deal with no enrichment, he was wrong.
Then to show how dumb he is and how indifferent to human suffering, what did he do with South Africa
billions of dollars committed by the Biden administration and other international partners to South Africa are intended to support the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, rather than reinforce fossil fuel usage. This effort is part of a larger initiative called the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP).
Biden roasted for sending South Africa $8 billion to shut down coal plants: ‘Weapon-grade lunacy’ The president said coal-fired power plants would be replaced with renewable energy sources
WE still have no EV charging station with the Billions for our own country!!! Stupidest man to ever walk the earth
"White House is pretending that Trump has always been in favour [sic] of blowing the place up, and has never tried to do a deal (sorry, a Deal)."
What are you talking about?
Trump said yesterday that Iran could still make a deal, but it would be a total end to any nuclear program.
Trump's demand for Iran's "unconditional surrender" is not "making a deal". You can tell by the term, "unconditional".
FBI learned of Chinese Plot to throw the 2020 US Presidential Election to by shipping fake driver’s licenses to the United States to manufacture “tens of thousands of fraudulent mail-in votes” for Joe Biden,
Hmm...
https://justthenews.com/government/security/fbi-asked-spy-agencies-destroy-intel-alleged-china-plot-aid-joe-biden-2020
Why would they want to do that? A Trump win is much better for China.
I've got a few billion in tariffs that say otherwise.
TACO
And yet, Chinese tariffs are still well above 30%
That sounds like a big problem for American consumers, and particularly low-income consumers.
Haven't seen the problem yet, at least not in inflation data or wage data.
I thought inflation data was one big FRAUD on the American people?
Tariffs don't bother China. Like Russia, I think they want an administration - a political movement, if you will - that will cause America to tear itself apart. And I must say...just look at us now
Aren't you a genius. That has always been the goal. First of the Soviets and more recently China.
If the Demo-clowns who just cannot accept the elections keep it up, they are effectively doing China's bidding
I wasn't aware of anyone contesting the last election. But it's not like MAGA to make up things. I'll have to look into this
No, they aren't contesting the election process. They just cannot bring themselves to accept they fact that they lost.
"They just cannot bring themselves to accept they fact that they lost."
This sounds awfully familiar. Glad to hear you find contemptible those who think that way.
Lord it's like fish in a barrel these days
Of course Democrats didn't contest an election. Donald Trump contested an election, and therefore, good Democrats can't do that. Whatever Trump does, good Democrats do not do. So Democrats tried to remove Trump from the ballot, to disqualify him, to bankrupt him, to jail him. Trump didn't do those things, so they're fair game.
The Democratic machine trashed their own party's nomination rules to install a machine-selected candidate. Democracy in action? No. Democrats in action.
Do you know why Joe Biden opened the borders (without saying so)? Because Donald Trump wanted to lock them down.
Trump bad. Democrats good. Hobie genius.
The Democratic machine trashed their own party's nomination rules to install a machine-selected candidate.
That's a thing that didn't happen.
Those are words you don't like to describe the ugly process that you very well know happened. The Democratic party certainly didn't use an election process, by way of voters, to select their presidential candidate. They coerced the elected candidate to resign from the ballot, and then by acclamation appointed a stand-in candidate.
That's not a thing that didn't happen. And everybody recalls the essentially improvised ad-hoc process by which Harris became the candidate.
I don't doubt there are David Nieporents in the world who can articulate a [theoretically] legal process by which Harris became the candidate. But everybody else knows what it is that I'm talking about that you say didn't happen. It won't be remembered as an example of America's political systems having worked well.
Those are words you don't like to describe the ugly process that you very well know happened. The Democratic party certainly didn't use an election process, by way of voters, to select their presidential candidate.
The Democratic party certainly used an election process, by way of voters, to select delegates to the convention who would select a candidate. However, the guy they were going to pick dropped out. That meant that those delegates had to vote for someone else, and they did: the very person who had previously been designated by that guy to replace that guy if necessary. I don't know what you mean by "by acclamation." There was an actual vote by those delegates. They chose Harris. That's how the process was always designed to work. There was nothing "improvised" or "ad hoc" about it.
Despite your denial of my statements, I don't think we disagree about anything here.
Democrats contested an election in 2000; when the courts gave a final ruling, they accepted it. Trump in 2020 ran an insurrection rather than accept the election results and the long string of court losses that followed.
I'm not a Democrat, but as far as I can see, the only people these days who allow their opponents to determine their morality are MAGAs. It doesn't go both ways.
That's stupid even by your standards
Think logically here -- stirring up dissent and disorder is the best for China -- the real issue here is why did the FBI ignore this?
AND what else would fake drivers licenses do? Remember "REAL ID."
China's interest is to have a US president who won't defend Taiwan, and who will alienate all of America's allies. From the perspective of 2020, that was obviously Trump rather than Biden.
Russia and Hamas seem to have thought otherwise.
Did they? They certainly seem to have gotten the best possible result out of the 2024 election.
You fail to see who was President when they significantly escalated their attacks.
It may shock you to hear this, but not everything is about the US.
"It may shock you to hear this, but not everything is about the US."
Ironic coming from you, US affairs dominate your comments. So it seems everything is about the US for you.
That's flat untrue; he posts about overseas elections all the time.
"he posts about overseas elections all the time"
10 comments a year is not "all the time".
I never said he never comments about Euro stuff. What does ""dominate" in "dominate your comments" mean?
He posts more about non-use events than anyone else on here.
"He posts more about non-use events than anyone else on here."
Sure, he's the only non_US person who comments, other than maybe the dude with Japanese in his name.
So when you said 'US affairs dominate your comments' you meant as baselined to an imaginary other non-US poster on here.
Come on, man.
"Come on, man."
Ok Joe.
99% of his comments are on US stuff.
Hey, revealed preferences, Martinned. Maybe you think the Chinese ought to have preferred Trump, but they didn't.
So far the reports don't indicate an intelligence op large enough to have thrown the Presidential election, but the reports indicate that they swiftly shut the investigation down and ordered the findings destroyed, so, who knows what they'd have found if they'd wanted to know what the Chinese were really doing?
At any rate, seems to have been on a much larger scale than the Russian efforts in 2016 Democrats made such a fuss about.
Seems to be a pattern, actually, of the Biden administration aggressively not wanting to know about what Chinese intelligence services were doing in the US. Remember that spy balloon they didn't want to admit existed, or do anything about?
Maybe you think the Chinese ought to have preferred Trump, but they didn't.
How can you tell? You're bootstrapping that conclusion to turn the initial speculation into facts.
the reports indicate that they swiftly shut the investigation down and ordered the findings destroyed,
Of course, there is actually no evidence that any of that happened.
You're swallowing this, and even exaggerating it?
"The reports?" What reports? Listen to yourself. You sneer when a newspaper cites an anonymous source for a story you dislike. But float the flimsiest rumor that you want to believe and you swallow it whole.
they swiftly shut the investigation down and ordered the findings destroyed, so, who knows what they'd have found if they'd wanted to know what the Chinese were really doing?
More conspiracy talk. Remember, they decided to "re-interview" the informant. It couldn't be, could it, that they decided he was full of shit, and ordered the reports deleted because they were worthless, and didn't want them circulating or leaking. That looks like a reasonable thing to do. So maybe it wasn't a giant coverup.
Seems to be a pattern, actually, of the Biden administration aggressively not wanting to know about what Chinese intelligence services were doing in the US
Yeah. Right. The story in your head just gets bigger and bigger. You take a flimsy tale, expand it, and write a War and Peace length novel about it in your head.
Who was ultimately responsible for any errors allegedly committed by the FBI in summer 2020, I wonder?
There. Was. No. Biden. Administration. In. 2020.
Truth. If you want an America isolated from the world, and where all it's best institutions and supremacies are dismantled one by one; only one party can and does provide this
Why did the FBI ignore a "report" from disgraced ex-journalist John Solomon which wasn't published until 5 years later? Hmm. I think that question answers itself in multiple ways.
Here is a contemporaneous report from 2020 of about 20,000 fake drivers licenses being siezed the summer of 2020:
https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/shipments-of-nearly-20000-fake-drivers-licenses-seized-at-chicago-airport.
" CBP said most of the fake IDs were for college-age students. Many had the same photo but different names. But one alarming discovery was that the barcode on the fake Michigan licenses actually worked, CBP said. "
Yes you might wonder just what good fake drivers licenses would be if the picture on them didn't match, one possible use would be remotely filling out a form that requires a drivers license, but nobody checks the picture with the bearer.
I had a great fake ID in 1978, even with my nome de guerre, Frank Drackman, got it at a "Head Shop"(remember those?) in Alhambra (California, not Spain)
Photos often really don't match, and then women change their hair color and style and really don't match.
Carpet doesn't match the Drapes?
Just The News!
Some people never learn.
Raw data is there too. Well linked.
But, if you would prefer your news be "filtered" through the appropriate "people" so you don't need to look at the raw data. Well...
None are so blind....
So if you got all that raw data you need now, do you think the 2020 election was stolen by China?
There are two links in the story, one to another Just The News article. It’s based on a “confidential human source.”
You’d think you’d learn to stop getting your news filtered by a crackpot.
What raw data? The CBP report? That's not raw data and it doesn't confirm anything except that the licenses, some of which came from the UK and South Korea were seized by CBP.
Armchair seems to have quit the field on this one...
This is nonsense, as always with Salomon.
A confidential human source told FBI counter-intelligence in summer 2020 that China’s communist government was shipping fake driver’s licenses to the United States to manufacture “tens of thousands of fraudulent mail-in votes” for Joe Biden, according to a raw intelligence report distributed to federal agencies that was reviewed by Just the News.
The report – one of two sent Monday by FBI Director Kash Patel to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley – was sent to U.S. intelligence agencies on Aug. 24, 2020, as an uncorroborated advisory, then suddenly recalled with little explanation other than the bureau wanted to “re-interview” the source, the documents stated.
The recall notice specifically asked spy agencies to erase or delete the original intelligence memo, the memos show.
So there is an uncorroborated story, from an unnamed source, which was withdrawn so the informant could "re-interviewed" by the FBI.
Meanwhile, there is a link to a CBP report about seizing 20K fake licenses, which lists a number of ways they could be used for criminal activity, with vote fraud not among them.
The licenses apparently all had the same, or maybe one of a few - it's not clear - pictures on them.
Maybe that black Chinese guy was going to visit 20,000 polling places on Election Day...
Let's see the evidence, on the record. FBI Director Patel should tell America exactly what happened, by whom, and when.
U.S. Department of Education Refers Massapequa Mascot Case to the U.S. Department of Justice
Today, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) announced that it is referring its investigation into the New York Department of Education (NYDE) and the New York State Board of Regents (the Board) for their unlawful attempt to ban mascots and logos that celebrate Native American history to the U.S. Department of Justice for enforcement. This action comes as the NYDE and the Board rejected the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR)’s proposed Resolution Agreement that would bring both entities into compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (1964) by rescinding its prohibition on Native American mascots and logos.
“Both the New York Department of Education and the Board of Regents violated federal antidiscrimination law and disrespected the people of Massapequa by implementing an absurd policy: prohibiting the use of Native American mascots while allowing mascots derived from European national origin. Both of these entities continue to disrespect the people of Massapequa by refusing to come into compliance with the Office for Civil Rights’ proposed agreement to rectify their violations of civil rights law,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “We will not allow New York state to silence the voices of Native Americans, and discriminatorily choose which history is acceptable to promote or erase.”
https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-refers-massapequa-mascot-case-us-department-of-justice
Glad to see the Trump administration is going after the hard cases!
This is an IMPORTANT case.
You should be glad they found a function of the Department of Education they want to preserve.
Seems like a frivolous claim. The naming of public school mascots is government speech, not private speech, and what civil rights are at issue?
Tanker collision: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-858079
Iran is messing with navigation.
I think you might be jumping to conclusions, but yes, it's called the Persian Gulf for a reason. Bombing Iran might have consequences for your ability to drive your car to Wallmart.
For the record, oil prices are up since this conflict began, but nothing completely crazy. So some risk of interference with supply seems to be priced in, but no large probability.
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/
Ooh, that's convenient!
New Trump phone automatically adds users to classified war plan group chats
Where are them golden phones made?
"Trump threatens 25% tariff on Apple, other tech giants if they don't start making devices in America"
Trump’s got history making stuff in China.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RVnoc-ISUag&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5tD
In my former hometown of Faro, Portugal, passport control at the airport has gotten so bad this year that the lines snake all the way to the exit doors of the planes themselves. It takes almost 5 hours to get to the luggage carousels. Tourism has gone mad. The Louvre shut down. Venice shut down.
Where'd all these extra tourists and their beautiful shekels come from? It's almost as if some major, world tourist destination has made itself so toxic that discerning people no longer want to visit
It’s interesting how many people think they have it worse than their parents as the number of cruises, overseas trips, etc., skyrockets.
Most of those cruise-goers *are* the parents who could easily buy a house on less than 30% of their wage and are now spending years of equity and retirement savings that their children would prefer to inherit.
Overtourism long predates Trump, and the Portuguese are quite capable of screwing up their government bureaucracy on their own.
They were never having this kind of problem in Faro prior to 2025
There are a million reasons why something bureaucratic works for a long time and then doesn't. Budget cuts, someone who turned out to be important retired, some new computer system that didn't work, a flight connection that used to go to Lisbon is now flying to Faro, etc.
So leave already, when I came back from Israel in 2023 it felt like Ellis Island 1901, standing in line with Borat and Omar the Shoe bomber, was afraid they were going to put me in Isolation for months like they did with Vito Corleone for my chronic Smoker's cough (much better now, seems like everyone in Tel Aviv smokes)
"Where'd all these extra tourists and their beautiful shekels come from? It's almost as if some major, world tourist destination has made itself so toxic that discerning people no longer want to visit"
Yup. It's all the Jews' fault.
Maybe it's because I grew up in NYC but shekels has been a metonymy for dollars for a while; no actual association with Jewishness any more than mishigas or zhuzh spiel are.
Exactly as I intended. But to the MAGA hammer, every nail looks like antisemitic terrorism
You stated that the rush of tourists in places like Portugal and Paris is due to the war in Israel. Which is laughable. Almost like those places would have no tourism if there were no Israel.
He was talking about the US, dingus.
He missed that part, too, didn't he. Oh Lord! Hear my prayers...please don't let these people be in charge of anything. On an unrelated topic, I've been in a coma the past eight months. Can anyone tell me who won the election?
Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin, mostly.
Foreign passenger counts at Boston Logan are up from last year.
Three years for this seems far too light. I get there was no premeditation, but this kind of wildness was just as lethal as if there were.
https://apnews.com/article/nfl-raiders-ruggs-vegas-fatal-dui-sentence-83f2ae13b0b52427900745b59637b058
For reference, the UK sentencing guideline for offences involving death by dangerous driving is here: https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/causing-death-by-dangerous-driving/
I would think that 156 mph on a city street qualifies as "Speed significantly in excess of speed limit or highly inappropriate for the prevailing road", and that's before we get to the alcohol. (I don't think the article says he was "highly impaired".) So that's the highest culpability category. Under English law that means a starting point of 12 years, with a range of 8-18 years.
(NB in England prisoners serve only about half their sentence as a matter of law, with the rest on parole, unless they misbehaved while in prison.)
I'd give him 10 years just for his complexion
The writer of the Frank Fakeman character writes him edgy racist today, tomorrow he will be written to cry over the black baby holocaust yet again.
Tomorrow he will be not celebrating Juneteenth.
June-what?
Trump will probably unleash the B-2s to bomb Iran's nuclear bunkers in the next 48 hours. They may even be in the air already (they usually fly out of Missouri, and I would expect the bunker busters to be stored there).
An interesting question: if you drop a nuke on a nuclear weapons bunker, would anyone know?
The US (and likely Israel) have "low yield" gravity bomb nukes with a 7.5 kt yield (See the B-61 wiki page), about the same yield as the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP) that they plan to drop on Iran's nuclear bunkers. I have little doubt they can (or have already) put these on a few MOPs.
The explosion will happen underground; it could be dialed to the same yield as a MOP**; there will be radioactive residual elements (but the US could blame that on the radioactive contents of Iran's facility).
Or, you might even dial it up to 2 or 3 MOPs, ... or ten because you plan to drop 3+ anyway on the same spot for certainty. Of course a single underground 75kt explosion would register on everyone's Richter scale so your have to say, well they are guided and our pilots are just that good to achieve simultaneous orga.. explosiongasm.
if you drop a nuke on a nuclear weapons bunker, would anyone know?
1. Yes. Nukes are designed not to go nuclear unless someone presses the proverbial button. If you drop a regular bomb on a nuke, the place glows in the dark but there is no nuclear explosion.
2. No one is saying Iran has nuclear weapons, so it also doesn't have a "nuclear weapons bunker".
"If you drop a regular bomb on a nuke, the place glows in the dark but there is no nuclear explosion."
I think you've missed the point: How do you know a 10 kiloton explosion 250 feet under hard granite was, in fact, a nuclear explosion?
For a high yield device, its obvious: he way most underground nuclear explosions are detected is seismic readouts (like earthquake sensors). You can see a 400 kiloton nuclear detonation on a seismometer.
For a low-yield device detonated underground, this presents difficulties (the yield might be too low to detect on a seismometer). A nuclear detonation is very high temperature and tends to turn sand into glass and melt rock...but if the detonation is underground, you have to dig up the evidence... and if the detonation is 250 feet under hard granite, who's going to do that? There would be radiological evidence (you could examine the residual daughter isotopes and tell what the fission material was), but again, you have to dig those up.
An underground nuke buries the evidence, literally.
Don't think Israel hasn't considered it.
The big risk of doing this is not getting caught after the bomb goes off; it's that the bomb ends up as a dud, or misses, and ends up on parade. Then the fact that you attempted to drop a nuclear-tipped gravity bomb is self-evident.
"Nukes are designed not to go nuclear unless someone presses the proverbial button." Also no. We have thousands of nuclear gravity bombs in our arsenal (google B61-11). The president gives the (presumably top secret) order, the Air Force drops it, it goes bang. There is nothing at all special about dropping a gravity bomb nuke. Instead of 5000 lbs of special high explosives, you substitute a 700 lb nuke.
The order need not be (and is unlikely to be) made public, not at least for many years.
How do you know a 10 kiloton explosion 250 feet under hard granite was, in fact, a nuclear explosion?
You observe the radiation, both from space and from all sorts of places on earth that are set up to measure radiation. (Including lots of places that measure radiation for scientific purposes.)
"observe the radiation" is not really an argument. From a nuke you observe: gamma rays; alpha particles (ionized helium); beta particles (high energy electrons); and the daughter byproducts of radiation fission. Most of the first three wouldn't penetrate rock. The underground bunker already has uranium, and so would be contaminated with similar radiological byproducts.
Yes, I was talking about the types of radiation that very much do go through rock, like gamma rays. The fact that they exist on a constant level all the time doesn't mean you wouldn't notice if they spiked due to a nuclear explosion. But it's definitely true that detection is less likely if the nuclear explosion is relatively small, and if it is relatively far underground.
Wikipedia has a bunch of links about satellite detection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_detonation_detection_system#Satellites
I'm not sure how well that stuff performs when the detonation is (far) underground.
and so would be contaminated with similar radiological byproducts.
No, it wouldn't. When a fission bomb undergoes fission, it create fission-products, which are radioisotopes that are distinctly different from natural decay chains.
For example, you would expect to see Protactinium-231 from a U-235 decay chain. When U-235 undergoes fission, it creates Xe-140 and Sr-94. If you find any Xe-140 or Sr-94, the only way it got there was through fission.
Here's a website discussing the decay chain for U-235 fission:
http://www.hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/NucEne/fisfrag.html
Here's the natural decay chain for Uranium:
https://sites.wustl.edu/hazardouswaste/radionuclides/uranium/
Who speaks for the womprats?
"If you drop a regular bomb on a nuke, the place glows in the dark but there is no nuclear explosion." That depends. Enough said.
they usually fly out of Missouri, and I would expect the bunker busters to be stored there
B-2s and their bombs are already forward deployed to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Yes. Easily.
"Yes easily" is not an answer. Explain yourself with ... idk, actual science.
The answer comes from your question: in your question, the weapon is dropped.
There's no way that a dropped nuclear weapon doesn't release detectable radioisotopes into the atmosphere even if the weapon burrows itself before detonating.
"there is no way" is still not an actual argument.
Its not at all self evident. Israel is thinking about this problem as we write this, I have no doubt. They have bunker busting nukes, the same way we do, and are wondering whether they would get caught.
Do you think that the hole that a penetration bomb makes just closes up behind it instantly?
The underground bunker already has uranium, and so would be contaminated with similar radiological byproducts as those that would vent. Its not at all self evident to me that a low yield nuke (say 0.3 kt) would be easily distinguishable from the fallout from a bunch of conventional bombs dropped on a radioactive pile.
Fission biproducts are gonna be different than just unfissed uranium sent into the atmosphere.
I'll repost my reply to the same point you made up above:
You think Israel is working to nuke someone but keep it secret?
That's kind of a slam on Israel, no?
dwb, A dropped nuclear weapon cannot bury itself deeply enough to contain the explosion. And even if it could bury itself that deeply, radioactive debris would vent through the penetration channel. R. W. Nelson, “Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons,” Science and Glob-al Security, 10:1–20, 2002
Yes, but we can't afford to use them because Trump slapped one of his punitive tariffs on exports from BIOT.
dwb68 — I am having a problem imagining how even a half-kiloton conventional explosion could be packed into a MOP. Can you explain how that works?
The difference in the type of explosive used?
You're right, Stephen, the OP is mistaken. The MOPs conventional explosive yield is 4.46 tons, or 0.00446 kt.
huh, i stand corrected. My bad. Google AI summary told me it was 7.5 kt. Only off by a few orders of magnitude. Score one for AI... lol. So it weighs 30,000 lbs but the yield is 4.46 tons? Most of it must be steel.
So that's the answer, the difference between a 7.5 kt bomb and a .00446 kt bomb will be obvious.
Most of it must be steel.
That is exactly how it works. It's a lot of mass designed to penetrate deep into the earth before detonating.
Warhead weight ≠ explosive yield
PBXN-114 and AFX-757- the explosive parts of the GBU-57- are more energetic that TNT.
If course he cannot, because it cannot be done.
Hegseth couldn't even manage a parade.
We might drop a few bombs but nothing else.
We're certainly not going to invade Iran or get involved in nation-rebuilding - especially under Trump.
DWB, Putting a multi--kiloton nuclear device inside a BGU-57 is not going to work. Very deep penetration requires a highly stylized design that is heavy long and narrow–much narrower that an your imaged 7 kt device. One might design the old W-48, 75 ton shell in the rear of the BGU-57. But that will spew many tons of radioactive debris out the penetration channel. Before speculating wildly, first find out how these weapons work
True, but weve already done it-- the B61-11, designed to penetrate up to 750 meters of rock. We have about 100 of these we commissioned.
also: The B61 was designed to be dial a yield. It can go as low as .3.kt to as high as 400kt.
designed to penetrate up to 750 meters of rock
The B-61 Mod 11 does not penetrate 750 meters of rock prior to detonating; it only goes a handful of meters underground before it explodes.
Exactly. Using the 400 kt yield option, and having the device penetrate 10 m, the crater depth would be about 200 meters, based on scaling the Sedan crater.
That's GBU-57, for "Guided Bomb Unit," not BGU-57.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-57A/B_MOP
Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth Shattering Kaboom!
dwb68,
This is all off the top of my head, but IIRC the following are some facts to consider-
1. B2s are stationed at Diego Garcia; I think there are six are so of them, and these would be the ones used. Each one can carry 2 MBUs. They were pre--positioned there several months ago, and have a range that would allow them to strike Iran from that base.
2. If they were to strike Fordo, it would take multiple MBUs to definitively penetrate to the depth required.
3. Regarding whether or not this will be made public, I will respectfully disagree; first, this type of operation can't be kept a secret, really. Second ... I mean, you remember who the President is, right? We will be lucky if it isn't on social media before the planes get back.
The last bit is an unfortunate reminder of the dynamics at play right now. This is not an administration driven by any deep policy concerns or ideological commitment; but by caprice and whim from the top, with factional infighting to get the "last word" before the final decision-maker (and a side-dose of self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement).
I have no special inside knowledge, but I would bet money that Trump was 100% against the Israeli strikes until he saw them dominate the news cycle and also saw how effective they were, and now he wants to claim some of that glory (well, Baghdad Bob ... erm, Karoline Leavitt, will try and claim all of it). Maybe not, but I'd definitely take that bet. Which is why I expect we will be making the strike sooner than later (and why I assume that the recent Vance verbiage was an attempt to smooth the waters with the isolationist base).
Disclaimer- I am 100% against Iran going nuclear, and 100% for the Iranian people being freed from the shackles of their theocratic overlords. But I also think that there is a long history of military interventions in the Middle East (going back to the Great Game) just not working out as intended.
Why do you assume 'air dropped bomb' is the only way to address Fordo?
Israel could seal the entrances and air shafts. It could use ground forces, (almost zero probability)
I assume nothing. But unless things drastically change, a ground operation is not really in the cards- and geography (and the fact there is a a lot of geography and, um, other countries between Israel and Iran) prevents anything other than a special operations force, which presents a whole host of problems and a non-zero chance of a debacle.
Also, don't sleep on Pickax. That's a bigger problem than Fordo, and also where (assuming they were able to move anything) the "good stuff" would be if they were trying to build something- even as crass as a dirty bomb.
Does no one study logistics anymore? Have all sieges been memory-holed? You do not need to destroy a facility that no one can enter or exit. Unless Iran built a deep underground rail line from that facility to a launching site, it is enough to isolate it with conventional munitions.
.....eh, not really.
If the facility is completely intact, and you just destroy the entrances and exits, then you've stopped it for now. And as long as you keep bombing it, that's fine. But as soon as there is a cease fire, you can dig it out. And within weeks (or months at most) it will be back.
Because you didn't destroy the facility, the equipment, or the material within. And it's annoying and time-consuming, but easily doable, to remove the rubble and restore the entrance and egress to the facility. In fact, it's almost like all of this has been discussed (and this has been done before).
Destroy the entrances, block up the exhaust ports, eliminate any outside electricity connections.
Everyone inside dies, much of the machinery bricks.
Rumor has it that there's an exhaust port that leads to the main reactor. A well-placed bomb could cause a chain reaction that destroys the whole thing. No need for B2's and bunker busters.
Like shooting womp rats.
Yes, because the nuke is not 100% efficient and the leftover nuke stuff has a chemical fingerprint that can trace it to where it was made, and often when.
That would be a problem if Israel ever used one of their nukes because they got the material from us.
This premise is very unlikely = POTUS Trump will probably unleash the B-2s to bomb Iran's nuclear bunkers in the next 48 hours.
The Israelis think they can do it. Let them try and fail, first. It isn't like the Israelis are bad engineers, you know. 😉
FBI asked spy agencies to destroy intel on alleged China plot to aid Joe Biden in 2020 election
2020 was a coup and the Democrats were the key players and cover-uppers.
Moron who lies about everything too stupid to know who was president in 2020.
The FBI did some other things to help Joe Biden in the 2020 election too. That doesn't mean Biden was president at the time.
Trump ran things so badly the last time he was in charge, you decided to see if he could do it better a second time...
In case anyone cares about what the people think who would have to run a gloriously peaceful new Iran: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/06/iran-opposition-israel-war/683207/?gift=yMNG1nWDz8TdLBAi02a-v-TPnvFiG9_ithGcWe-JN1w&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Last two paragraphs:
Kar told me she blames Khamenei for having made an enemy out of Israel for decades. But she made clear that Netanyahu is no friend to Iran’s freedom fighters. “Nobody I spoke to in Iran supports these attacks,” she said. “People are angry, and they hate the Islamic Republic. But they now probably hate Mr. Netanyahu and his military policies even more.” Israel’s campaign could yet rattle the Iranian regime into some kind of change in behavior or composition. But the notion that air strikes will lead to a popular uprising, or that Iranian activists for freedom will support a devastating war on their homeland, appears to be little more than a fantasy.
Kar told me she blames Khamenei for having made an enemy out of Israel for decades. But she made clear that Netanyahu is no friend to Iran’s freedom fighters. “Nobody I spoke to in Iran supports these attacks,” she said. “People are angry, and they hate the Islamic Republic. But they now probably hate Mr. Netanyahu and his military policies even more.”
Israel’s campaign could yet rattle the Iranian regime into some kind of change in behavior or composition. But the notion that air strikes will lead to a popular uprising, or that Iranian activists for freedom will support a devastating war on their homeland, appears to be little more than a fantasy.
Interview a bunch of female "activists" and write an article. Useless. No one talking to The Atlantic has any real influence or will play any real role in a conservative society.
The aim is to get some regime elements to decide to end it. That is how such regimes are usually ended.
A civil war is the best outcome for us to be honest.
Because Iraq, Lybia, and Sudan are doing great at the moment, and aren't at all a source of geopolitical problems for the United States?
"source of geopolitical problems for the United States"
None of those are a source of geopolitical problems for the United States. We have some small Iraq bases but could live without them.
Sudan has never been a source of geopolitical problems for the United States.
Iraq btw is not doing "great" at the moment but is a relative functioning democracy and the Kurds have de facto independence.
You know, we learned a lesson about ignoring issues in the Middle East as none of our concern.
Well, some of us did.
Israel whacked the 5 Families and settled family business for now.
We never "ignored" the Mideast, you goof.
We neglected it pretty hard before 9-11. You can check the National Defense Strategies before and after.
I could care less what an emasculated Iran w/o nuclear capability does. If the people 'Saddam-ize' Khamenei, no problem. If not, he can look at his failure every day until he dies.
They don't have to support Israel's war to take advantage of it.
Seems that there is at least a few people there with an appetite for change:
1999 Iranian student protests 2003 Iranian student protests 2009–2010 Iranian presidential election protests 2011–2012 Iranian protests 2016 Cyrus the Great Revolt 2017–2018 Iranian protests 2018–2019 Iranian general strikes and protests 2019–2020 Iranian protests Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 protests 2021–2022 Iranian protests 2022 Iranian food protests 2022–2023 Mahsa Amini protests Woman, Life, Freedom movement
Sure, but how do you "take advantage of it" without being tarred with an antisemitic brush domestically? I don't think "friend of Israel" is a good slogan if you want to take over Iran.
I see that Carlson and Bannon are trotting out footage of luminaries explaining that Israel has long dreamed of dragging America into a war with Iran. This could get them into hot water. To imply that the people of Israel would sponge off the United States makes it seem a little nefarious. With allegiance to Israel being a MAGA sacrament, this could get the two pundits the old RHINO/America-hater label like Leonard Leo now has. It's also antisemitic terrorism too
There is a video a Jew PM demanding the US invade Iran.
The corruption in the Karen Read trial continues.
Among the questions the jury asked the judge:
Question #4 – If we find not guilty on two charges but cannot agree on one charge, is it a hung jury on all three charges or just one?
Judge Cannone: This is a theoretical question, not one I can answer.
What? The jury is confused about how to proceed, and the judge refuses to clarify.
We're in the same place we were last year.
If I were on the jury I would just acquit on all charges, out of a sense of fairness to the accused. (It's clear the charge they are hung on is the OUI.)
Aren't jury trials great? Why not simply flip for it and get everyone (except possibly the accused) home in time for dinner?
So, you don't like the idea of jury trials?
This is not a problem with jury trials, it's a problem with a corrupt judge. She's in cahoots with the prosecutor, and pulled this same nonsense in the first trial.
The "tool" she uses is an utterly confusing verdict form. She supposedly simplified is a bit at the request of the defense, but it's still a confusing mess; hence the jurors' questions.
No, I don't like the idea of jury trials. Deciding guilt or innocence is not a job for amateurs, and still less should the power of the state to emprison people (or even execute them) be taken in the form of a decision that is unreviewable because it doesn't involve any sort of explanation of the reasons for the decision. Criminal trials for felonies should involve (at least) three judges, who should be made to write a judgment that explains why they concluded what they did, so that their decision can be reviewed on appeal.
1. Fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I completely disagree. 2. "in the form of a decision that is unreviewable" We have an appeals process, you know. Of course the jury deliberations are not reviewable verbatim, but the entire trial is.
In my experience, and in my opinion, I have come to a position in between that of Martinned and Publius.
Yes, the jury is a "black box," and that can be frustrating. However, for the majority of "regular crimes" and some "regular civil stuff," I have found that juries do an amazing job. Especially when it comes to "regular crime" I think that juries are a bulwark of liberty, and would not want to get rid of them. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
But ... I think that too many civil matters have required jury trials that are unnecessary. And I also think that there are a small category of crimes (e.g., financial crimes) and a large category of civil matters (e.g., medical malpractice, design defect) that the jury system, as currently constituted, just doesn't work well for.
TLDR; jury trials are an important right. And I think that they are, in fact, surprisingly effective when it comes to "murder" and things that most people are generally familiar with. But when it comes to certain civil issues or even esoteric criminal issues, I don't think the utility outweighs the repeated and notable deficiencies.
I’m not so sure I agree that med mals are over a jury’s skis. They aren’t any more out of their depth than a judge who also has no medical training would be.
On some civil matters, it’s not necessarily that they can’t handle it, it’s that you shouldn’t subject them to such boringness. No jury should be forced to listen to the worst lawyers you’ve ever seen fight about accounting practices.
I should be more specific- it's not all medmal matters (some are easily within everyone's understanding) but certain areas.
The problem is that it is easy to play on pathos, and the science can be portrayed as "disputed" when it isn't. There are solutions on the judicial side (better scientific gatekeeping through Daubert) but that's just one of many. As a general rule, as I stated, juries do really well when it is on issues that are generally within common understanding, and the further you are removed from that, the worse they do.
(IMO, a lot of the best reform would be accomplished by removing a lot of the actions from the tort sphere completely; IIRC, New Zealand did this with medmal. But ... well, this is 'Murikuh, and I just don't see that happening.)
“A lot of the best reform would be accomplished by removing a lot of the actions from the tort sphere completely.”
I’ve long thought this about commercial premises liability specifically, which juries easily understand. There’s just so much wasted time and resources on trying to find out whose fault it is, and whether that’s a legal question or a factual question. Instead of having rent-seeking “snow removal” experts preparing reports or courts taking years to decide if a puddle is a open and obvious as a matter of law, we could just have state funded accident insurance like workers comp. Which isn’t perfect but is way better than workers having to sue their employers all the time.
A lot of gaming of the system is due to the complexity of the laws of evidence, which only exist in the first place because the judges are trying to stop the jury from reaching the wrong answer.
The Rules of Evidence really aren't all that complex at all. There are a few edge cases.
Who would replace jurors for those cases?
Judges. (In my view more than one on each case.)
I’m not so sure I agree that med mals are over a jury’s skis.
I think they are. Those from the Boston area may recall the Louise Woodward case from maybe 15 years ago. She was a British nanny taking care of a local couple's small child. When the baby died from head and brain injuries she was charged with "shaken baby" manslaughter.
Being between assignments at the time I watched the trial on Court TV. Both sides presented expert witnesses - well-credentialed, obviously knowledgeable neurologists - to support their case.
At the conclusion I realized that, were I on the jury, I would have no way of knowing which group had it right. I'm not a neurologist. I don't think I even know any neurologists. How was I to make sense of this? I suppose that means I would vote to acquit, but I would have no confidence in that conclusion.
It has always seemed to me that when highly technical matters are at the heart of a case expecting a jury to sort it out is pretty damn optimistic.
A juror who cannot determine what occurred based on the evidence presented should vote against the party having the burden of proof.
In a criminal case, to convict the accused requires the prosecution to dispel every reasonable doubt. If the evidence in a civil case is in equipoise, the jury should find in favor of the defendant (unless the nature of the case requires a higher standard of proof such and clear and convincing evidence). Tenuous or insubstantial civil suits are weeded out through the summary judgment process.
Winning a lawsuit is not easy, nor should it be. The reason for delegating such determinations to juries is that the collective wisdom of a group of people is preferable to the perspective of a sole decision maker.
For the record, I don't think anything important in the judiciary should ever be decided by a sole decision maker. I think felony trials should be before a panel of three (or even more) judges.
“maybe 15 years ago”
You wish.
Hate to break it to you Bernard11 but the Woodward case was 28 years ago. Time indeed flies.
Yeah.
Should have checked.
How about patent infringement cases? Anecdotally I had understood that juries are completely out of their depth in these.
How can you even know if the jury did a good job? Because you agree with their answer? Without an explanation of their reasons, you have to take their competence and their willingness to do their job well on faith.
If it makes you feel better, less than 5% of criminal charges go to trial. Most of the rest are plea bargains.
That does not make me feel better. Particularly because one of the reasons why people plead is because they think the jury will dislike them.
Let government decide your guilt or innocence, like Europe, who also lets government decide your permitted speech.
The court is not "the government".
"Aren't jury trials great? "
Yes they are.
How would you know, Bob?
It's basically the only way to prevent a judge from sentencing on the basis of the conduct you acquitted on, sadly.
I don't understand that. Let's say there are three charges. The jury acquits on two, convicts on a third. Doesn't the judge have to consider only the conviction in determining sentencing?
Yes and no. The person can only be sentenced on what he was convicted. Up to the maximum for that.
However, the Court is allowed to consider "relevant conduct." Which might include that he was charged with on the other counts. Or even uncharged conduct. And for which the Court only has to find the conduct by a preponderance of the evidence.
Sounds counterintuitive, but that's the law. You can see a short summary of it here: https://www.srtriallawyers.com/blog/2025/march/understanding-relevant-conduct-under-the-federal/#:~:text=Relevant%20Conduct%20refers%20to%20a,of%E2%80%94when%20determining%20their%20sentence.
Needless to say, prosecutors love it, and defendants hate it.
Thanks. But the resource you link to is regarding Federal sentencing guidelines. This case is State of Massachusetts. Are they the same?
That I don't know. I would defer to Massachusetts lawyers.
Many judges are unable to count to two.
I don't see a problem.
It's the jury's job to only find guilty or not guilty on each charge and not to be concerned with other factors outside of the guilty/not guilty decision.
Whatever happens after their decision is out of their hands and they shouldn't/needn't be concerned.
Thanks, I get that. But in this case it's my understanding that the verdict form is utterly confusing, and doesn't simply allow the jurors to express guilty or not guilty on each individual charge. Also, there's confusion about lesser included charges:
Question #3 – Does convicting guilty on a subcharge, example offense 2, number 5 convict the overall charge? Answer: (Cannone) I have amended the verdict slip, and it’s going to be a little bit easier to follow.
Well, no. They are still arguing about this in court this morning.
The verdict form, and the instructions thereof, is a travesty of justice.
The law is complex, and the jury form reflects that. Count 2 charges Read with Manslaughter while Operating a Motor Vehicle under the Influence of Liquor. That crime has three lesser included offenses: Involuntary Manslaughter, Motor Vehicle Homicide (Felony-OUI Liquor and Negligence), and Operating under the Influence of Liquor. There are three varieties of Operating a Motor Vehicle under the Influence of Liquor, one of which is, confusingly, called Operating a Motor Vehicle under the Influence of Liquor.
If you were trying to teach the concept of lesser included offense, you would start with a simple example, not Massachusetts’ Manslaughter while Operating a Motor Vehicle under the Influence of Liquor law. The original verdict slip isn’t too hard to figure out if you already know what a lesser included offense is, but if this was the jury members’ first encounter with the concept of lesser included offense, I’m not surprised they struggled with it.
I see this cop killer is getting MAGA reverence ala the would-be cop killer tiny, microscopic Saint Ashtray Babbitt. You boys in red sure don't like our boys in blue
You're a jerk. You obviously know next to nothing about this case, and the corruption of the Canton PD, the State cop (who's been fired), and the corrupt ATF agent involved.
She didn't kill John O'Keefe. There was no collision. He had no bruises or broken bones consistent with any car impact, let alone a 3 ton SUV going 24 mph. He was apparently beaten, banged his head when he fell, which killed him, and dumped on the front lawn. They the PD, et.al., went into gear to frame Read.
The misconduct and malfeasance in this case is staggering.
But you don't care, as long as you can use it as a cudgel against your perceived political enemies, truth be damned. Shame on you.
I see even after Trump's trials we continue the saga of people who haven't seen criminal practice before seeing it and assuming a conspiracy based on their vibes of fairness.
That's a meaningless comment, because it can be used for every single case of someone pointing out unfairness or corruption in a case. Have you ever heard of the innocence project?
There is corruption and unfairness on the part of law enforcement and the courts. This case is stunning in the obvious display of such.
I don't suppose you've followed it, or watched any of it.
You MAGA have brought this on yourselves, Publius. Crying corruption/wolf about anyone and everything for years and never being right about any of it. Why should we take you seriously this time?
"Crying corruption/wolf about anyone and everything for years and never being right about any of it."
I have done no such thing. And I really don't care if you believe it, and you don't speak for "we," you speak for yourself.
Here, watch this. I'll start a partial list of the corruption you MAGA have been wailing about and have never been right about, and let's see if any other 'we' steps up and adds to it:
Courts Judges FBI Smartmatic Dominion Hunter Joe Illegals voting in federal election Vince Foster Benghazi Space Lasers Wuhan Nanotrackers Ivermectin Is 5G also a MAGA/Q thing? (I'll throw it in just to be safe) Sandyhook Pizzagate Birth certificate Stop the Steal
Whew! Haven't you mask hating patriots been a busy bunch!
"you MAGA?" Right. How did I get inducted into your imaginary group?
You're just as bad as those who refer to foreigners and brown skinned as "you people."
Lol “corruption.”
Lead investigator of the case fired for misconduct. Corruption? No, nothing to see here....
"The Massachusetts State Police investigator who was suspended over allegations of misconduct in the Karen Read murder case has been fired, state law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
The State Police Trial Board made the decision to dishonorably discharge Michael Proctor, who led the investigation into the 2022 death of Read’s boyfriend, a Boston police officer, after three days of hearings that began in January.
The trial board found Proctor guilty of three charges of unsatisfactory performance and one charge of consumption of alcohol while on duty from January to August 2022.
The charges stem from Proctor's sending "derogatory, defamatory, disparaging, and/or otherwise inappropriate text messages about a suspect in that investigation to other individuals.” Proctor also consumed alcohol on duty and proceeded to operate his department-issued cruiser in July 2022."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michael-proctor-lead-investigator-karen-read-case-fired-massachusetts-rcna186684
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
To clarify I was laughing at the idea that that response to a jury question, which is pretty similar to one most judges would give, which was drafted after consulting with the lawyers for both sides, in any way constitutes “corruption” or a continuation of it.
Judge Cannone rejected virtually all of the defense's objections to and proposed amendments to the verdict form. She buffaloed them into doing it her way. Now we apparently have the exact same problem as the first trial.
Why does she refuse to answer their question number 4 in the OP? Why is it even a question? If the verdict form was simple and straightforward, it wouldn't even be a question.
“If the verdict form was simple and straightforward, it wouldn't even be a question.”
LOL. LMAO.
What are you laughing at? The judge just amended the verdict slip. You can read the before and after:
https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/06/18/amended-karen-read-manslaughter-charge-verdict-slip-released-by-court/?utm_email=C54664A9B583C5530485E5E28E&lctg=C54664A9B583C5530485E5E28E&active=yesD&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.bostonherald.com%2f2025%2f06%2f18%2famended-karen-read-manslaughter-charge-verdict-slip-released-by-court%2f&utm_campaign=bos-boston_herald-breaking_news-nl&utm_content=alert
I’m laughing at the idea that a jury wouldn’t ask this question if the verdict forms were “simple and straightforward.” I’m sorry it’s just funny. You’re making a huge deal about run-of-the-mill jury trial issues and questions. Jurors often have issues with the forms, no matter how simple, and they often have questions about agreeing on some counts and hanging on others. What you think is indicative of corruption is just everyday trial practice.
Practitioners are telling you this is all pretty normal, even if you don't like it.
There's an interesting discussion above about process improvements and reforms.
But no, you're sure it's corruption. Based on ignorance, vibes, and stubbornness.
This seems to happen to you a lot. I feel like outside of this website you live a pretty sheltered life.
The funny thing is, is that if I was the appellate attorney I probably would try and make an issue of the answer and the verdict forms. The other thing to remember is that no trial anywhere is perfect or free from error. It’s just that this is normal stuff. Which is why Publius’s broad pronouncements about there being corruption or simple obvious answers to things is so funny to me.
Maybe the prosecution is corrupt. Maybe the judge is dumb or in the tank for one side. But the jury having questions about hanging on some counts and not understanding forms and the judge providing a non-answer to those questions happens all the time.
Recall the first trial was a mistrial, where jurors interviewed after the fact said they wanted to acquit on two counts, but couldn't do so with the provided verdict form. So, Read was re-tried on ALL charges.
Okay. Sounds like a good issue on appeal.
Note that Judge Cannone DID amend the verdict form, after all.
You know what other cop was fired for misconduct? The only person who claimed that Abrego Garcia was MS-13, upon which all subsequent claims were built.
apropos what?
In addition, look into the case of Sandra Birchmore, another high profile case in Norfolk County with a police-involved killing (and long term sexual abuse, starting when she was a minor) that the PD immediately ruled a suicide and then the feds stepped in and ruled it murder, and convicted a Stoughton cop. The murder happened in Canton.
"Birchmore's case has drawn parallels to the Karen Read case, another high-profile investigation in Norfolk County. Both cases involve allegations of law enforcement misconduct and have raised questions about the integrity of the investigations conducted by local authorities.[5][6]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Sandra_Birchmore#:~:text=On%20February%204%2C%202021%2C%2023,alleged%20to%20have%20killed%20her.
We need to get Sidney Powell on this one, assuming she hasn't been disbarred
One just can't get a serious, thoughtful response from you, and a small cadre of stone throwers here.
The thing is you're very passionate, but not very serious.
Sarcastr0 whips out the "you're not a serious person" trope; one-note Sarcastr0. It's an insult, I guess, but it's quite meaningless.
You didn’t bother to educate yourself on the process, or look at folks on the other side of the issue.
You just went hard and mad at what you were told to be mad at. When it’s pointed out you got the wrong of it, you did not reconsider you just got madder.
That’s you not actually engaging as though you care about true things. It is you making choices thst are lazy and unserious.
Does this criticism make sense?
No, because I didn't get it wrong (the judge eventually amended the verdict form), and I didn't get mad. That's in your mind.
Oh, and the "unserious" again. You're the one who's not serious.
You called the judge corrupt. That's still an unsupported accusation.
If you can't tell the difference between 'process didn't go right' and 'judge was corrupt' that's another example of the problem you have of passionate certainty over factual inquiry.
Since when is a statement made to the media that you were drunk evidence for an OUI conviction?
The RMV would be damn busy if it were....
Since when is a public admission evidence? I'll think about that one and get back to you.
Yes, I believe she implicated herself. The part that I don't think is fair is that she was prosecuted for that without the usual opportunity for a continuance without a finding for misdemeanor OUI. Now that she's been convicted it's a permanent disability, including making her a federally prohibited person (regarding firearms). There may be employment issues, too.
" Now that she's been convicted it's a permanent disability, including making her a federally prohibited person (regarding firearms)."
Yup. She was sentenced to a year probation, which apparently is standard for first time DUI, but in MA the maximum sentence is 2.5 years, which gives anybody who gets a DUI a lifetime ban on gun ownership.
Yea, which is why a continuation without a finding would have been much better for her. Seems unfair to me that she didn't have that option.
On the federally prohibited person thing, the maximum sentences for things have crept up since 1968, but not the threshold for fpp. Also unfair.
Not guilt on counts one and two, the two most serious charges.
Guilt of OUI.
"Guilty"
Even under a democratic trifecta, ICE won’t be abolished. So here’s my one weird trick that a democratic president could do to improve ICE in all aspects: replace its senior leadership with postal inspectors. Real federal law enforcement heads know why this would be an improvement.
Only Nixon could go to China, and only a Republican Congress/President can abolish ICE.
Why not people who sell that flavored ice on the street? Probably many are immigrants. They also don't cover their faces.
Heh. But ICE should be abolished. Not that we don't need any immigration enforcement; we do. A small percentage of illegal immigrants do need to be deported. But having a specialized agency focusing solely on immigration enforcement leads to too much focus on immigration enforcement. (To be clear, I feel the same way about other specialized law enforcement agencies. We shouldn't have a DEA or ATF, either. (At least not the law enforcement aspects; there could still be regulatory aspects.))
"focusing solely on immigration enforcement "
What does the "C" stand for?
Abolished, no, we need immigration enforcement. But it can be renamed, redesigned, and set upon a path where it is less likely to become a gross abuse of power in the future.
About 20 minutes ago was an excellent time to buy some short-dated put options:
Trump: "Maybe I should go to the Fed. Am I allowed to appoint myself? Am I allowed to appoint myself at the Fed? I'd do a much better job."
If you'd just donate to the Trump Clan, you get on the heads-up email list for when he's gonna play with the markets
Some of the time. But the problem with Trump is that he says dumb shit all the time. Neither he nor his staff necessarily know ahead of time when something like this is going to happen.
It must be hard to be President, Pope, and Chair of the Federal Reserve!
Certainly, that would deserver another, better attended, parade.
On a serious note, maybe focus on the job you were elected to do, instead of constantly sending out messages about other jobs you'd also be terrible at.
Don’t forget head of the Kennedy Center.
As Louis XIV, great man, very nicely put it, “L’Etat, c’est moi!” I don’t think it can be denied that Mr. Trump is focusing on the job he was elected to do, looking out for the United States, so defined.
Trump pulls out laser pointer, the lib cats must chase.
I doubt he could figure out how to operate a laser pointer. But a Sharpie is another matter.
Yes, silly libs for caring that the President says dumb shit all the time!
Skrmetti out
Tennessee wins, 3 Lib Amigas lose again. Yeah!
No substance; just did the libs get owned.
I tend to think this was the right outcome; dunno about the level of scrutiny analysis.
Yeah! Fewer kids will get their dicks cut off! Take that, libs!
How's that?
Uh, the Plaintiffs in Skrmetti did not challenge the ban on genital surgery for minors. Why do the peckercheckers incessantly trot out that red herring?
The ruling foreclosed any such future challenges.
Fewer children will be chemically castrate as well.
That really much frustrate peckerpluckers like yourself.
What is "fewer" than zero?
"No substance; just did the libs get owned."
What is best in life?” “To crush your enemies, See them driven before you, And to hear the lamentation of their women!”
There is no plausible world where the framework for deciding whether something is a suspect classification (history of discrimination, immutable characteristic, discrete and insular minority with a disadvantage in the political process) doesn't result in gender orientation being a suspect classification. Simply put, if sexual orientation is a suspect classification, so is gender orientation.
But of course looking at it through the prism of animus gets you to the same result. These laws are based on blatant animus, and no one can say with a straight face that they are not except complete sociopaths.
"One just can't get a serious, thoughtful response from you, and a small cadre of stone throwers here.
(H/T ThePublius!)
The majority found that it was unnecessary to decide whether transgender status was a suspect class because it found that the regulation did not treat people differently based on that status. Thomas, Alito, and Barrett all wrote separately. All three said that in their view it was not a suspect class.
This makes the case in some sense a more minor one because most issues are left undecided by it.
However, the case appears to have undermined an interpretation of Bostock I would have stuck with. In my view, Bostock is based entirely on behavior, treating men e.g. dressing in clothes traditionally associated with women (or engaging in other behavior traditionally associated with the other sex) as analytically no different from black people sitting in parts of the bus traditionally associated with white people, and hence and is not based on “transgender status” at all. A key difference is that a new status category would be less inclusive. A man fired for dressing in womens’ clothes once but who does not normally do so would have a claim under a behavior-based approach, but not under a status-based approach. To me, not covering isolated events would amend Title VI to refer to “on the basis of transgender status,” not “on the basis of sex.” And would this limitation translate to race? Could black people be kicked off the bus for sitting in the front as long as they don’t do so habitually and are not medically required to do so? To me, that simply doesn’t make sense. It’s altering the text rather than being faithful to it as Gorsuch claimed.
I personally would not interpret the Civil Rights Act as prohibiting things like sex-specific dress codes. I would consider legislative intent, not pure text. But if we claim to go strictly with pure text, I would stay with it, including when it leads to results the Court’s members may not like. (For example, I think Bostock’s textual approach equally protects white people who dress in blackface.)
Two places to get good coverage later regarding today's "celebration" of Pride Month at SCOTUS are Erin Reed and Chris Geidner. A preliminary comment: Roberts, Gorsuch & Kavanaugh avoided going the extra mile to support anti-trans legislation than the other half of the majority, which reached out to allow it.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/ https://www.lawdork.com/
Roberts for the Court, with Sotomayor dissenting from the bench. We should have livestreaming of opinion announcements.
Earlier: The Trevor Project received a stop-work order last night on its contract with the national 988 suicide prevention hotline. The Trump administration is eliminating the option for LGBTQ callers to the hotline to press 3 and connect with someone who specializes in LGBTQ mental health.
The ACLU should not have sought cert with this Court. Sure the Sixth Circuit upheld the Tennessee law, but now there is a nation-wide rule on this that other circuits and perhaps more importantly state courts will follow. And using state con law to reach a different outcome state by state is difficult once SCOTUS has relieved them of thinking too hard about jt.
The ACLU should not have sought cert with this Court.
I don't think that's a fair criticism. The ACLU may have been hoping to get the Bostock majority to come out again.
Bostock worked because the statutory textualist angle was really straightforward and they already had a solid precedent in Oncale (written by Scalia). The constitutional argument is much harder to succeed on even in front of a more friendly court. Not sure they win in 2015 either.
They were playing with fire.
Counting to five was hard with this Court, especially once it was no longer simply a statutory case and a more controversial subject was involved.
Counting to 5 would have been hard with Kennedy and Ginsburg still on the court IMO.
I question whether that would be true in 2025.
That is what we have to factor in -- trans issues after a decade more of development of understanding and practice, including years of clear anti-trans animus that would have at least probably bothered Ginsburg (also some of the reasoning in Roberts' opinion would appall her).
But that's just trivia at this point. I also would flag a portion of the opinion where Roberts, with its author staying silent, even suggests Bostock on statutory grounds is limited in scope.
"We have not yet considered whether Bostock’s reasoning reaches beyond the Title VII context, and we need not do so here."
I don't know what that means exactly, but I do fear it will add fuel to anti-trans efforts.
Now we have all 9 on record, on the subject of the medical sexual mutilation of children. 3 for, 6 against.
American Jews are not gonna be happy with this ruling because of penis mutilation, and certain Muslim sects will be unhappy because of clitoral mutilation. In high school, I dated a girl who got a boob job. She was really vain. That's out the window now.
Well that and it's them promoting this subversion to begin with.
It's really creepy how like a third of your comments have references to Jews in unflattering ways. Gives me an uneasy feeling, like you're just waiting for an excuse. Certainly it belies some form of obsession.
You lie, Roger S. Genital surgery was not at issue in this case. The District Court opined:
Plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge SB1's ban on "surgically removing, modifying, altering, or entering into tissues, cavities, or organs of a human being" when the purpose of such procedures is to "enable a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex" or to treat "purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity." Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 68-33-103(a)(1)(A)-(B); 68-33-102(5)(A)-(B). Accordingly, any relief provided Plaintiff pursuant to the Motion will not impact SB1's ban on such surgeries.
L.W. ex rel. Williams v. Skrmetti, 679 F.Supp.3d 668, 681 (M.D. Tenn. 2023) [footnote omitted], rev'd on other grounds, 83 F.4th 460 (6th Cir.). No one appealed that issue.
"Genital surgery was not at issue in this case. "
If a state can ban puberty blockers, it can ban a much worse and irreversible thing.
"Genital surgery was not at issue in this case."
You don't think this case forecloses a challenge to the genital surgery ban?
LawTalkingGuy, it was the Department of Justice's petition for certiorari which was granted in this case, limited to the equal protection question. The cert petition of the Plaintiffs (transgender minors, their parents and a physician), which raised substantive due process issues as well, was not granted.
I agree. Unfortunately, fervor and legal strategy don't mix. It doesn't matter how strongly you feel that something is unjust; it matters what the courts are going to say about it.
They sought cert before the discovery in the Alabama case came out.
Calls to the hotline are probably gonna drop by 95%
Authoritarianism in parents may hinder a key cognitive skill in their children
Children develop the ability to understand what others think and feel—an ability known as theory of mind—through early social interactions, especially with caregivers. A new study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development suggests that parents’ beliefs about social hierarchy and obedience to authority may shape the development of this socio-cognitive ability.
This supports an hypothesis of mine, that more fundamental than the usual superficial political divides is the issue of "us v them" - who is "us", who is "them", and how steep are the gradients and the barriers
The study claims that White kids of right-wing authoritarian mothers were less likely to attempt mindreading of Chinese kids. No mention of left-wing authoritarianism, or whether the mindreading was correct.
"Authoritarianism in parents may hinder a key cognitive skill in their children"
Oh, a conservatives are dumb and or evil study. Totally without precedent.
In a psuedo science journal no less!
I have another error to admit, this time about not seeing any Trump-flation, from Scott Bessent's X:
Thanks to @POTUS’s pro-growth, America First policies, real wages for hourly workers are up nearly 2% [1.7%] in the first five months of @realDonaldTrump’s second term — the strongest growth in 60 years."
Wait, I guess Real Hourly Wage growth is almost the opposite of inflation, and although I concede wage growth can be a factor in inflation its the absolutely most desirable factor, and the fact its real wages means its far outstripping other factors.
By contrast over of Biden's first year Real Hourly wages were down by -1.7%.
graph at link. https://x.com/SecScottBessent/status/1934992476105818400?t=ROqTRsv7xWj-WxCGGi0bIw&s=19
Of course the other factor, maybe a more significant factor, besides economic growth, is by at least one estimate 1 million illegal aliens have self deported.
Kazinski : "By contrast over of Biden's first year Real Hourly wages were down by -1.7%."
OK : Now contrast with Biden's last year - i.e. the economy Trump inherited, not the garbage Biden inherited.
(Mark Twain warned me about you.....)
That's a good point, lets look at the data for both of their first full terms, and for context Obama's last year:
2016 +0.37%
2017 +1.66% 2018 +2.53% 2019 +1.86% 2020 +4.96% Trump full first term +11.00%
2021 -2.83% 2022 -2.50% 2023 +3.34% 2024 +0.52% Biden full 4 year term -1.47%
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RCPHBS
This is a not exactly the same measure its "Business Sector: Real Hourly Compensation for All Workers (RCPHBS)" as opposed to Real Hourly Wages Production and Non-supervisory (SAAR) that Bessent cited. Quibble about that if you want to.
The number for 2020 should have clued you into the problem here. Real hourly wages went up because lots of workers lost their jobs, leaving only the most valued (meaning higher paid) workers with jobs. Similarly, removing poorly paid immigrants from the economy will increase the average hourly wage without increasing the wages of people who are still working here.
So what happened 2018, when that wasn't happening?
That was still a much better performance than Biden's 4 years combined, although it was only about at Trump's 4 year 1st term average.
Major Meat Packaging Facility Shuts Down Amid Nationwide ICE Raid Concerns
The unexpected shutdown of Glenn Valley Foods’ Omaha plant, a key U.S. grocery chain supplier, exposes a fragile food system. After ICE’s June 10 raid took 76 employees into custody, plant production fell to 20% capacity, causing beef deliveries to be interrupted with record-high prices.
This raid is merely one example: 62% of meat processors cite labor shortages as their most significant concern, compounded by rising ICE activity under current deportation policies.
Shortages don’t only stop production, they kill. With 20.6% of plants short-staffed, sanitation protocols fall through. The 2024 Boar’s Head listeria outbreak, which led to 10 deaths, traced back to a short-staffed Virginia plant.
Glenn Valley’s skeleton crew risks the same shortfalls: fewer hands, more rushed inspections, and overlooked contamination. When ICE deports 54% of a plant’s workforce, food safety is collateral damage.
https://www.gretasday.com/major-meat-packaging-facility-shuts-down-amid-nationwide-ice-raid-concerns/
Better buy your 4th of July steaks now.
There has to be something else going on than labor scarcity because pork and chicken prices are not making similar moves.
https://images.app.goo.gl/Z2SMF
If it were just labor maybe Elon could get busy creating AI robots for the meat packing industry.
Of course I am very uncomfortable with the concept of an army of eviscerating robots leading the transition to an AI economy on an emotional level.
"Shortages don’t only stop production, they kill."
Sensationalism. No one is going to die from a shut down meat packing plant. And it's not the labor shortage, it's the management irresponsibility.
The point was that understaffed meat packing plants create a higher risk of foodborne illness; deporting a large percentage of the workers leaves the plants understaffed.
Yes, but the plant to which he was referring closed down!
"The unexpected shutdown of Glenn Valley Foods’ Omaha plant, a key U.S. grocery chain supplier, exposes a fragile food system. After ICE’s June 10 raid took 76 employees into custody, plant production fell to 20% capacity, causing beef deliveries to be interrupted with record-high prices."
We will get over it. They will hire people in the U.S. legally and move on.
Not unexpectedly, you quoted but didn't understand the part about production falling to 20% capacity. Good that it shut down (perhaps there were health inspections that prompted this) but it apparently wasn't immediate. The 62% with labor shortages probably aren't all shut down.
Milei Libertarian Chainsaw Experiment seems to be going extremely well:
"GDP growth is projected to be robust, at 5.2% in 2025 and 4.3% in 2026. Private consumption and investment will continue to recover, sustained by higher real disposable incomes, more favourable financing conditions and an improving business environment. The recent removal of capital restrictions will support further improvements in economic sentiment and investment. Inflation will continue to decline, albeit at a slower pace. Amid rising imports, the current account will deteriorate.
Monetary policy will need to remain tight to maintain inflation on a firmly downward path. Fiscal policy should build on the recent successful adjustment with more sustainable consolidation measures, to maintain strong fiscal outcomes. "
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-outlook-volume-2025-issue-1_83363382-en/full-report/argentina_b5c5a820.html
Meanwhile Inflation continues to improve, May inflation was.the lowest.in 5 years:
"BUENOS AIRES, June 12 (Reuters) - Argentina's monthly inflation rate slowed to its lowest level in more than five years in May, official data showed on Thursday, adding momentum to President Javier Milei's drive to rid the country of chronically soaring prices. Prices during the month rose just 1.5% from the month before, national statistics agency INDEC said, well below the 2.0% estimate from analysts polled by Reuters."
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-inflation-cools-may-lowest-over-five-years-2025-06-12/
Meanwhile here in the US:
Fed predicts higher inflation, slower growth for US economy
The Federal Reserve downgraded its projections for U.S. economic performance this year, along with several primary economic indicators.
The U.S. central bank sees lower economic growth, higher unemployment and higher prices amid major changes in U.S. trade policy and worsening geopolitical tensions.
U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2025 was pulled down to a prediction of 1.4 percent from 1.8 percent made in March. That’s in line with a recent World Bank forecast, which also predicted growth for this year at 1.4 percent.
GDP grew last year at a robust 2.8 percent.
Unemployment will rise to 4.5 percent this year from its current level of 4.2 percent, Fed economists predicted Wednesday. Its previous prediction was for unemployment to average 4.4 percent this year.
https://thehill.com/business/5357633-fed-downgrades-economic-forecast-gdp/
And yet I just heard Chairman Powell just say the Labor market is still strong, especially by historic measures, and they aren't concerned about it.
Plus that does seem at odds with Bessent's data above for strong wage growth for blue collar workers, but it could just be blue collar workers are doing better than white collar workers.
One would expect a reduction in the number of illegal aliens in the country to help blue collar wages more than white collar wages. The number of illegal aliens doing white collar work, while not zero, is probably pretty low.
One would expect that if one believed in the lump of labor fallacy.
Well, Trump isn't exactly deregulating things to a Milei extent, now, is he?
By conventional government apologist theory, Argentina should be a living Hell by now given all Milei has been doing. He's doing a great job demonstrating what BS those theories are.
Go move to Argentina then. Live under the Latin American strongman you so love, you miserable excuse for a libertarian.
The question is not whether Milei has improved Argentina to the point where living there is preferable to the US, in the space of a couple of years. Of course he hasn't. He's set the country on a trajectory which, if they can continue it, will eventually have that result, though. Particularly if we keep doing a lot of stuff that's self-destructive.
The question is whether he's improved Argentina by doing things apologists for government tell you would, instead, be disastrous. And, yes, he has. Dramatically so.
He's shit on civil liberties. And freedom of the press. And democracy.
But number go up so Brett likes it. Just like he wishes we went back to pre-Lochner.
You're not a libertarian; you're a market worshiper. And individual freedoms be damned - number go up is the One True Master.
Helpful explainer:
https://www.justsecurity.org/64645/war-powers-trump-iran-strikes/
What's just one, or even two bunker busters between friends?
Truth is Trump is more likely to get impeached, and convicted, and removed for not dropping a bunkerbuster on Iran, than he would be for dropping it, because the vote would get 100% of democrats both ways.
America can be the backup if Israel tries and fails to obliterate Fordo. No need to lead with US strikes. This is Israel's fight, for now. Israel should try and fail, first.
See the thing is, I don't think Israel will fail in obliterating Fordo.
"America can be the backup if Israel tries and fails to obliterate Fordo. No need to lead with US strikes. This is Israel's fight, for now. Israel should try and fail, first."
Not our circus; not our monkeys.
An Iran with nuclear weapons is everybody's monkey.
This is helpful in explaining what laws Trump is about to violate without repercussion. He's just going to make something up, dare anyone in the GOP to refute it, and bomb the crap out of anyone he wants to bomb.
A well timed book for today's SCOTUS opinion ...
The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin by Daniel Brook.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1324007249/reasonmagazinea-20/
His open-minded LGBTQ views apparently are still too radical almost 100 years after his death.
POLITICO reports that the Trump administration is cutting a suicide prevention hotline program for LGBTQ+ youth. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/18/lgbtq-hotline-trump-cut-00413306
I wonder. Will the self-proclaimed "pro-life" crowd weigh in on this?
My initial reaction is why not have a suicide prevention program for all youth? Why make the LGBTQ+ distinction?
I wonder how one can advocate for trans youth knowing "nearly 40 percent of LGBTQ+ young people had “seriously considered” suicide in the past year."
I think we should discourage transitioning, and focus on treating gender dysphoria as a mental disorder. I mean, we don't tell paranoids that people really are out to get them. Why "affirm" gender dysphoria?
Because the suicide rate is significantly higher and the issues these lids are dealing with are different, you empathy-deprived POS.
There's a lot of things TP refuses to think about, as though he is avoiding accidentally caring about the wrong thing.
kids, not lids, obvs
"Because the suicide rate is significantly higher and the issues these lids are dealing with are different...."
Then doesn't that affirm the concept that enabling, supporting, affirming these lifestyle choices and conditions does harm? What's the suicide rate or suicidal ideation rate for youth who are counseled out of transitioning?
I indeed have empathy for these kids. The long term approach is to stop the supposed "gender affirming care" and get them psychological help.
Short term, they can share the same suicide prevention hotline with all at-risk youth.
Finally, there's something to the argument that this isn't a federal government function or responsibility.
'Don't prevent this at-risk cohort from killing themselves, it just encourages them!'
This is not an argument someone with any empathy would make.
You're more partisan than human at this point. I will note the amount of energy you spend not learning anything that might upset your simplistic and angry worldview.
Virtually every comment you make on this forum is a personal attack. Try arguing the matter at hand. Plus, don't quote me with words I never said; that's deceptive, a lie. You lie, lie, lie, and attack, attack, attack, and rarely comment substantively. And you call me partisan! Ha, ha.
What's your view, anyway? Continue puberty blockers, hormones, and genital mutilation for minors at their own say so, even without parental consent, and then have the the feds fund the necessary suicide prevention services? That's evil. And, where does it end?
No Guilty: "the Trump administration is cutting a suicide prevention hotline program for LGBTQ+ youth"
That's a very misleading statement. It's continuing to provide suicide prevention services for all people. It's just getting rid of having a separate "silo" ("press 3 if you're LGB+") for whomever may label themselves as such.
Given all the different individual experiences of people who would call a suicide hotline, it's necessary and appropriate to provide sensitive, individualized treatment of all kinds of people. Making "LGB+" a special category is an arbitrary, broad and unnecessary distinction. What about battered children? People who can't afford their meds? Bipolar sufferers?
Sarcasm: Of course, there should be a separate phone number for "transgender" people. /sarcasm
Grassley Investigates ‘Prohibited Access’ Files at FBI, Demands Accountability for Document Destruction and Obstruction in Mueller Investigation.
Apparently there was/is a secret level of secure files in the FBI system, above "restricted access", which the agency concealed the existence of from any outside investigators who would supposedly have access to everything. Including the Inspector General! You would not even see indications of its existence if you lacked the relevant authorization.
Apparently!
Would you prefer "definitely?" "Apparently" as a preface is just a turn of phrase. But there is no doubt this happened.
"Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is following up on recent revelations in a declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) analysis he released exposing the FBI for placing certain Crossfire Hurricane files under “Prohibited Access” status, potentially preventing most FBI agents, Congress and the Inspector General from accessing some FBI records."
“There are entire sectors of the economy in Los Angeles that depend on immigrant labor,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a June 16 tweet that suggested the state’s population of illegal migrants is irreplaceable. “This administration is waging a war against our own economy,” she declared.
Miller quickly responded: ‘The Los Angeles Mayor says her economy is dependent on vast criminal lawbreaking and the federal government should ensure vast criminal lawbreaking continues forever.”
California Sen. Alex Padilla rushed to her defense, saying “You’ve got it flat out wrong, @StephenM. Let’s not forget California has the world’s 4th largest economy in the world because of immigration, not in spite of it.”
Miller leaned in, saying:
Senator, please clarify your position. Are you saying you do or do not want a vast illegal alien workforce in California? As to GDP, mass migration slashes *per capita* wealth. Eg, if California annexed Haiti its GDP would grow $20B but the average CA worker would be much poorer.
“Mass migration is a wealth (and political power) transfer from the American working class to migrants and to corporations,” he said in his next tweet.
In contrast, Trump’s enforcement of migration laws is helping to raise Americans’ wages and productivity. On June 17, Miller reposted a White House tweet boasting of a 2 percent wage gain for blue-collar workers amid the White House’s campaign against illegal migration....
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2025/06/19/miller-rips-democrats-pr-campaign-to-protect-migrants/
As a reminder, Miller is no more an economist than he is a lawyer.
See you all Friday! Ha, ha.
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Matt Welch | 10.22.2025 2:20 PM
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