723 Comments

The irony is that even if Russia really were as bad as we claim (it isn't, but whatever) - this would be but a pimple on the ass of the Saudi tyranny.

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The Saudis recently executed an astonishing eighty one people in just one day. Now find someone else other than I who knows that.

Now imagine if !PTUIN! had done that. We would know all their names, we would have seen their pictures, their families would be on tv every night.

As it is?

"It's okay! We love you! Kisses"

And there there is Bandar Buhs!

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The KSA beheaded over 50 people in 2021 for witchcraft. Russia doesn’t even have the death penalty. The same people who are insisting we tear down statues are supporting a country who makes 16th Century Europe look like a daycare.

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TRVTH

And well said!

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They have regular conferences, complete with water pitchers, monogrammed notebooks and ballpoint pens, for the discussion of witchcraft, as if it’s a real, pressing concern.

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This I did not know.

Wow!

But what else to expect in a medieval theocracy run by human monsters?

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There’s actually a Federal Task Force that runs around pursuing witches very similar to our organized crime task forces. The powers that be at Google have made it hard to find a lot of this, but you can actually read their police reports online via a vie witches. It’s like 13th Century England just suddenly got sky scrapers and cars. Crazy stuff.

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Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Exodus 22:18

King James Version

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Which "they?"

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Thats way way less than the number of drug dealers and gang members (typically young male minorities, with minimal educations, and typically in Democrat cities with onerous gun laws) that die every day in America from gun and drug violence. Just like they did in the 1920s over gun and alcohol violence.

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The DNC screams at school shootings, but says nothing about the children gunned down in 'defund the police' DNC run cities. I guess in their sick minds, all children are valuable but some are more valuable than others.

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I support tearing down statues & I've opposed US support of the Saudis for over 20 years.

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Which statues though?

My dream is to come to America someday to view the oh so famous Statue of Limitations!

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I view tearing down statues as speech suppression. Speech can take many forms, and one of those is 3D graphic representations. I don't want Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee statues torn down. Rather, I want them used as a means of focusing reasoned discourse on important issues. The popular narrative misses that Lincoln was a racist, on record saying that the Negro will never be equal to the white man, and Lee manumitted he slaves.

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It's worse than that, it's the destruction of memory, of history and heritage.

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Something on which we firmly agree. There are other areas of agreement.

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WELL SAID!

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Your number is too low. The litany of crimes that call for execution is extensive, and the Saudis have literally millions of expats from Pakistan and India from whom to chose. Even Sharia punishment for non-capital crimes can result in death.

Saudis hire others to do their work for them, as I've seen in many trips to the region. The joke is whether sex is work or pleasure. The Saudi thinks, and replies "Pleasure. If it were work, I'd have a Pakistani do it for me."

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"in one day"

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My reading skills are slipping, but I got the "one day" bit. Your number is too low.

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No one is even talking about the crazed liberal who used the Kavanaugh doxxing to try and kill him.

Can you imagine if a white Trumper had done that to RBG? You know how many liberals try to tell me she was the first female SCJ? These people know what the media told them and thats about it, sadly.

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I see that Mr. Greenwald finally outed Obama as a political player, good. I caught a clip on TV after a meeting Trump had with a few fellow colleagues during his presidency. I haven't a clue as to what they were talking about. When most left, and the camera panned in on him he expressed despair over our many stupid wars that killed many, cost millions and for nothing. I never heard any mention of his comment, and I think they were always afraid that he wasn't going to play the game right. I saw a video clip of Nancy Pelosi who was on the Intel committee during the build up to war with Iraq. She said quite openly that she knew there were no weapons of mass destruction so she didn't vote for the war, and thought nothing of the fact she was going to keep her mouth shut on the very reason we claimed we had to take out Saddam. I think after a while and sometimes a very short while, politicians sell their souls for money, for power. Most of them have become hollowed out rich people.

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Thank you. I find it strange that Democrats claim Trump has control of the Republican Party; he has far more influence over the Democrats. What else are they going to talk about? The record is shameful.

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Jun 13, 2022Edited
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It literally took hours for reinforcements to arrive. I live in Ottawa close to Parliament Hill and I have seen or attended dozens of demos. The Ottawa Police work with the RCMP and the military on these matters. I cannot imagine it taking HOURS for help in the event of a mob here storming Parliament. Minutes is more like it. It literally could not happen.

It has to be the same in the security obsessed US Capitol.

Jan 06 was an operation, a psyop.

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I heard Trump's speech on January 6th and while listening I never thought he was inciting his audience to violence, however he did say the election was stolen, and considering that for 4 years the democrats in complicity with a very supportive, non-objective mainstream press as well as the so called "independent left" who maintained no sense of objectivity were trying to unseat an elected president made it seem a possibility to me. If I recall correctly there were senators and congressmen willing to look at the six key sates that were in question. Violence would never benefit Trump's objectives, and if anything would undermine any legitimate claims he had. His base was repeatedly maligned from the beginning of his presidency, initially defined by Clinton as a half basket of deplorables. A meme circulating on Facebook described them as an uneducated, immoral lot. From the beginning they even set the stage for people to believe his base was capable of wrongdoing and were morally corrupt, and mindless, and capable, even with no weapons, to make an attempt to overthrow our government. So, from the beginning they had their cast of characters in place, and mindless enough to orchestrate an insurrection with no weapons.

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I saw that reported from some "news source" a month or so ago. I seem to recall that the report made it seem like the Saudi's had enacted delayed executions simultaneously, rather than 81 being some typical per period number, but it's still outrageous.

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It is a topic that is kept under wraps, but I became quite friendly with the Bedouins while I was in the Gulf. Sometimes I would go with a man and his wife to the "family" section of a restaurant, where she would unveil.

I have no confirmation,, only overheard conversations. Arabic is my sixth or seventh language, and they might well have been discussing recipes for hummus ma'a laham. The discussions, as I understood them, were about executions of females, which are astoundingly frequent, and almost always occur in private.

I didn't receive this information on stone tablets from a burning bush, and have zero confirmation.

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It's not a typical day no. They seem to save them up for some reason. It's probably just convenient.

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Interesting. How did you know that?

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By getting a great deal of sand in my shoes from a great number of independent countries since 1992. And maintaining correspondence with friends in multiple countries. My sources are fading, just as I am.

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In the swamp rat world, all despots are equal but some are more equal than others.

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Me, but that was a couple of months ago. I often read Aljazeera on line. However, I forgot all about it until you mentioned it here. I still don't understand why Russia can be so easily used as the boogeyman. I swear, I gave up that BS when I was 8.

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I heard this morning that around 46 Palestinian journalists have been murdered by IDF since 2000. The latest being a Palestinian-American. Love to see the admin handle that.

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1) How do you know they aren't "journalists"?

2) The D does stand for defense. Is it possible *murder* is inaccurate?

3) That's barely 2 (two) per year, in basically a warzone. I'd call that admirable restraint.

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Oh you heard it, it must be true. Is this like when the media heard Jussie Smollet was a hate crime victim. Stop posting tenuous BS and post something with substance.

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Much better thank you Nancy.

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Why discourage someone from posting? I'm not fond of the Facebook-like junior-high cafeteria atmosphere recently imposed, but any forum dedicated to absolute free speech must pay that price.

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I was just asking Nancy like I ask every poster here, to cite their evidence.

One thing Glenn does better than any journalist is provide evidence of all the stuff he is talking about and I get incredibly frustrated when this last bastion of actual evidence starts to tilt towards the normal websites full of unsubstantiated BS.

I did react a bit too harshly, but not to discourage them from posting, but rather to cite the evidence for their post.

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Hey, Bill,

Icon can be unnecessarily nasty, but in this case, he was very in line. I generally post links but forgot in this case. I am not yet at the point where people are going to take my word for it. But thank you for your input!

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FWIW thats the main reason I did get frustrated because you are always one of the 'good ones' who always cites their stuff, and I did respond a bit harsher than normal, my bad.

Also good link, was an interesting read that has me down another rabbit hole of learning :)

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I hope the high schoolers are paying attention.

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If liberal Democrats still believed in the existence of women, one would expect them to be horrified by Saudi Arabia's marginalization of said women.

But, it's a two-tiered conundrum.

Of course, as we all now know, there's no such thing as women and we must never , NEVER suggest that Islam is detrimental to them, whatever we call them.

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The DNC is an alliance, not a singular party. The cobble together anything that doesn't identify itself as anti-Democrat, and they try to put it together and serve it to the American public with a smile.

Who cares that Louis Farrakhan is an anti-semite and is an SPLC hate criminal, if the jewish Democrat voters never find out he was with Barack Obama until AFTER the 2nd term elections.

These people have been manipulating elections since the Adams family dynasty and its just in human fucking nature to be pieces of shit apparently.

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Yes, the pass the media gives to the anti-Semite hater Farrakhan is shocking...I'm not sure that most liberal American Jews even care. I don't get it.

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The media hides it. They call President Trump, arguably the greatest ally in the WH to jews, was an anti-semite, and hide the pictures of Obama with Farrakhan.

Its media manipulation and nothing else, when you look for it you see it EVERYWHERE.

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and its a dingleberry to USG corruption

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The Saudis can’t start World War III.

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Oh, well that makes their tyranny okay, then!

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Far from it.

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Deleted - responding to a different comment, sorry.

Bad cat!

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That is NOT what M. John said.

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Hey, Timothy Andrew Staples, HOW ARE YOU???

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Fair to middling. You? I mean, YOU???

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I am hanging in there. Thank you. I mean, YOU!!!

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Having lived in Luxor, Egypt and traveled extensively in the Middle East, I do not know a single Muslim country where I would want to have grown up as a woman, or gay, or a Muslim who decided to leave the religion. I was shocked to find out how bad it really is. But no one in the west wants to hear about it. Pretty ironic that I was able to get my story of helping a Swedish woman escape Luxor during the pandemic published in the most progressive Egyptian news outlet, but no progressive western publication would touch it. They are fools who need a good dose of reality. I get so angry about it. I'd love to see these leftists crying about Putin dropped into a village in any of these Muslim countries and left there for a year. Within a week, they would be begging to move to Russia.

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I don't think that most of us think Russia isn't bad, its that 90% of us on this forum know every other regime/government is too, and is just better at spinning it.

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That is not M. FC's (non-)point, and does not address his constant anti-West sentimentality.

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Russia is much, much worse than *you* claim, M. Feral, but, as you say, whatever.

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Evidence please.

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I refer to M. Feral's singular line of reasoning in all his postings. Even when Russia is not part of the issue at hand, he "points out" how it is better than the U.S.

The evidence is overwhelming, but I would never suggest anyone to go back and read him, so I won't play that game here.

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For the record, I do not believe Thomas and I are related, nor have we ever met.

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Jun 13, 2022
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And you think that western sanctions have nothing to do with anything?

Russia is a larger grain exporter than Ukraine. For that matter, Ukraine *could* export grain overland, and Russia has agreed in principle to allow grain shipments through the port of Odessa. Ukraine has refused, because they want the West to deblock Odessa so as to allow arms shipments.

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Ukraine is number two grain exporter after US. See empr.media Nov 6, 2021. Russia produces more grain but most is used to feed its people.

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Russia is the world's largest grain exporter.

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Not even close to accurate. Grain to Asia and Africa goes by sea, not overload to the mountains.

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It doesn't have to go through Odessa.

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Russia is NOT much much worse You seen to be a victim of US MSM.

I have a friend living in Russia, a former Canadian and journalist (Independent), who never wants to live in the authoritarian west AGAIN

Russians know exactly what US MSM says about them and their President

The US is mocked and laughed at. Hard .

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No one mocks us to our face though do they?

For the same reason we owe more $ than the rest of the world has, because we have the guns to tell anyone to fuck off.

And yet your liberal leaders will tell you how they need more gun laws, while their own states and cities are awash in blood and violence despite having worse gun laws than other states.

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I do not read, watch, or listen to the State-captured "MSM." I am a Capitalist (another word for Classical Liberal, like the founders and like Glenn Greenwald).

Putin and his oligarchs are Fascists who threaten the entire world, especially Western Civilization. The Russian people have burdened the world, especially the West, with their Authoritarian Socialist (another term for Fascist) leadership for 100+ years.

Good for you and your Russo-phile friends. Bad for the free West.

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Well, they may be be sons o' bitches, but they assuredly don't threaten the entire world--that's completely absurd. As far as Western Civilization is concerned, it's doing a fine job of destroying itself. Our homegrown sociopathic oligarchs (your heroes, evidently) are almost there--just need a little more time

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Don't put words in my mouth. No People are "sons of bitches."

The Russians threaten the entire world with their acquiescence of archaic and barbaric international Fascism, not to mention more nukes than the rest of the world combined. We are not threatening their use; they are.

The West has already started the long process of ridding its own Authoritarian Socialism, the neo-cons of the Republican Party, and the neo-libs of the Democrat.

The Peoples of Western Civilization are waking up to their birthright of individual freedom. The Russian People are regressing.

I'm getting tired of equivocators like you, M. Gordon. Wake up.

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You sound like a bot

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After your first sentence, each subsequent sentence is a non-sequitur. The second sentence, I suppose, is meant by you to support the first. It does not; it relates a single individual's experience, which cannot be used rationally to apply to the remainder of all cases. The third sentence has no discernible connection to the second. The third sentence has no discernible connection to the second. The final sentence is an unsubstantiated assertion.

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The real question is if we are the biggest, strongest, richest country, why do we have to get in bed with any dictators or tyrants we dont like?

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Biden wants to be paid off. He figures he is too well born to be prosecuted and convicted.

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Biden wants to be paid off by foreigners. The Clinton Foundation approach but straight into his Swiss bank account.

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I see Biden w/ Kimmel and I say, "WTF do leaders of other countries think of this country!" We heard that question incessantly w/ Trump but it's much more applicable now.

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On this note, maybe people ought to ask why Biden gets interviewed by Kimmel instead of by, oh I don’t know, let’s just pick a random name: Glenn Greenwald.

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Glenn would reduce the man formerly known as "Joe Biden" to a sputtering puddle of slime on the studio floor.

So no.

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Jimmy Kimmel did by not saying much.

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Kudos and Well Said.

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Joe doesn’t know truth, therefore can’t handle it.

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Jimmy Kimmel’s done the impossible…make Markos “Roses” Moulitsas look like a serious journalist. https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/01/09/nancy-pelosi-gets-delivery-roses-thanks-an-online-fundraiser/

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I saw that before. If i were a Democrat, i would be hanging my head in humiliation at the cringe. Which is probably why i haven't been one for over 2 decades.

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The parties died imo right around 1968 in Chicago.

Even the hippies saw that all the momentum in the world didn't mean shit vs. an entrenched 'the man'

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The hippies became 'the man'.

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The king is dead. Long live the king!

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Kimmel was never anything more than a second-rate (erring on the high side here) comedian.

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If he weren't such an obedient lapdog, he would have been canceled for "The Man Show."

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He must live in constant terror knowing the media can weaponize that karl malone impression or host of other things from his past at any moment. Shill for the shots. Shill for wars. Shill for Biden. Demonize Trump. Anything to keep the sword of Damocles from falling. One of his most humiliating moments was that award show. I can't hear you Jimmy! I can't hear you Jimmy! Say it again! Say it again!

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People try all the time, it gets suppressed, if you post it on reddit they will delete it and ban your account.

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u right fer sure tho his karl malone was pretty hilarious and those chicks on trampolines never gets old...

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Well the networks are such bastions of class, respect for women, diverse ownership, and not in any way part of a vertically integrated cabal of media, politics and business, clearly they and anything they produce should be given all benefits of the doubt.

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INDEED. I find him insufferable, personally

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Kimmel is playing the divide and conquer game. Our democracy has gone to hell, but the real source of the problem is far above the left vs right divide. It is with the .01% who own the media, weapons industry, big pharma and all other major infrastructure.

As long as we are fighting with each other, we won't see the real problem.

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And the real problem is the politicians work for the elite backers instead of their full cadre of consitutents.

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I like it when you start to see the truth Pete.

But why are you watching Kimmel, he's just a rebranded misogynist who is best buddies with Sarah "You Bernie Bros are being ridiculous!" Silverman. These people are bought and paid for by their media empires.

Anything they tell you is an ad. Anything!

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aI don’t “watch” Kimmel. That interview was covered by everybody, so I watched the first few minutes to see how it was actually going.

That was it.

Fox News has been shit since its inception, but still gets a lot of viewership. I guess that the rest of the media figured, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…to everyone's detriment.

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jimmy should have stuck with his juggies gig.

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It reminds me of the days when some people actually gave a rat's ass about whatever came out of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' mouth.

She was on Trevor Noah's show (got a nice hug from Trevor), Stephen Colbert (starry eyed Steve), a "hard-hitting" interview by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes (kidding) and a love-fest on Chris Hayes show on MSNBC that was thinly disguised as a 'Green new Deal Town Hall ."

Oddly enough, the toughest question I ever saw tossed her way was from Jake Tapper on CNN.

I guess he lost his mind for a moment.

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Great comment. Tapper puts on his big boy pants occasionally. There still a few synapses of intellectual honesty in that brain..a FEW.

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Agreed.

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They were all just trying to get into her pants, and were willing to listen to anything for the opportunity...

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They think that we're little better than those evil despotic states we say we so despise, with a media that goes to ridiculous lengths to deny the obvious.

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He goes on a late night comedian show yet doesn’t sit down with real journalists does he!!! Because he is I for to be president. He is the joke.

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Why do so many of the current crises all trace back to some form of Trump Derangement Syndrome? Can all the billions of dollars and years of effort used to prove absolutely nothing all follow from a seething irrational hatred of a former game-show host who was something of a "loose cannon" during his tenure? Was his outsider status the cause for all the pants-wetting and the continued growth of the police state expansion of DHS? The fallout from the years of utter anti-Trump bullshit continues to rain down on everyone and there does not seem to be an end in sight, especially now with the Jan 6 show trial gearing up just in time for the midterm elections.

When will it end?

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True elites -- the ones exercising power, not merely the "upper" classes -- don't give a damn about Trump's (often just supposed) narcissism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, corruption, or all the rest of the Democrats' red meat on him. They just want to SHUT HIM UP ... because he threatens their financial/power interests, combined with the fact that they have less than zero respect for Americans and for democracy.

Exhibit A showing this is the truly ridiculous narrow focus of his first impeachment, just to kill two birds with one stone (with Biden's corruption the other bird) -- after years of screaming a catalogue of Trump crimes and other offenses from A to Z.

The new-and-improved version is, of course, the January 6 Inquisition, which orchestrators hope will sweep not only Trump but his entire team and core of support into the trashbin. What they don't realize is that, to half the country, they already look worse than the clowns who ran the Soviet Union's (actual) coup d'etat in August 1991. In that case, the perps' fast collapse happened because they attempted it without a smidgen of competent PR.

Biden's behavior, a Glenn copiously describes, is just back to normal. It will NOT end. At least, not until something bad enough to wake the vast majority of Americans from their sleep and/or outright denial.

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"Supposed" is right. Trump was and is just a narcissist with a lot of BS bravado and bluster--characteristics appealing to many of us working class types and not unknown in varying degrees in most politicians. His frankness is appealing to voters as were his consistent efforts to follow through on his campaign pledges, something I've never seen in all my 61 years, with the exceptions maybe of Kennedy and Johnson with the Apollo project and the Great Society BS.

But WHO are these "elites" and WHY do they want to shut Trump up? What threat is he to them? I understand why the corporate press was after him--he made them look like idiots by getting elected. But who else besides the Democratic Party benefits from trashing Trump's reputation and sabotaging his presidency?

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"But WHO are these "elites" and WHY do they want to shut Trump up?"

In my opinion, Trump threatens primarily the Military-Industrial [-Congressional*] - Complex (MIC) with his war-limitation talk. This is of course quite a large number of people, including many powerful ones, globally. (* = in Ike's original draft(s)

There's dozens of other constituencies whose comfortable positions he threatens, if you look over some of his most-criticized speech (that are not the "red-meat" things I mentioned), and then spend some time following the connected money and/or power trails.

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Yep, and the "bill the people at the Fed level for state costs" Democrats are the left wing side of that Military-industrial complex on the (mostly) right.

They just want a bunch of free $ to build their empires and power bases up and a bill to Joe and Joanna Taxpayer

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He keeps saying the quiet part out loud - it's one of the themes of Glenn's article.

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THIS

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Yes, and he is too big to get rid of in the traditional means. He has too much money and fame. Boycotts? Useless, same with bribes. He also has the stones to call people like Milley "a fucking idiot."

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I think the threat he posed to the elites was his "saying the quiet part out loud"...

I recall the hyperventilating when Trump said we were in Syria to take the oil LOL!

We should compile a list of things that Trump said! That list would show quite clearly why the elites detested him..

I also noticed that the very things Dems accused Trump of doing THEY WERE DOING themselves Right down to the reasons for his impeachment

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The following commentary sums up the Trump Presidency and the unprecedented efforts to unseat him pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMrEzqwffEs&t=15s

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Neocons like Liz Cheney, globalists on either side, as well as established party members who have had to retire because now people are paying attention to politics all of a sudden (look at AOC).

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"True elites -- the ones exercising power, not merely the "upper" classes -- don't give a damn about Trump's (often just supposed) narcissism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, corruption, or all the rest of the Democrats' red meat on him. They just want to SHUT HIM UP ... because he threatens their financial/power interests, combined with the fact that they have less than zero respect for Americans and for democracy."

Spot on, Anti-Hip...amazing how few people understand this simple truth. You can grab all the P you want, so long as you play the game.

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Yep. A metastasizing cancer on all that the Declaration and Constitution attempt to establish.

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This might be the most fascinating question and phenomenon of our times...

since Trump liberals have talked themselves into a psychosis-level derangement and (as we all know) first and foremost this has caused them to abandon every possible prior principle: free speech, free thought, freedom of expression and dissent etc etc...

I can only guess about the psychological roots but I think the educated urban elite of America really deeply believe that it is their divine right to rule over the Deplorables class—liberals went to all the best schools, have the most cutting-edge dogma, the most valuable Rolodexes—they were about to elect the first female President and usher in a long reign of enlightened diverse technocracy (basically their eternal dream of top-down bureaucratic control sung to the tune of John Lennon's "Imagine") and then that evil orange man came and stole it all away...

So there response has been the raging tantrum of an infant who had all his toys stolen, or really the need people have to be in CONTROL and what happens when they think they're in CONTROL but it slips away (as it always does)...

And when will it end? Not until that man is either dead or otherwise incapacitated.

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"I think the educated urban elite of America really deeply believe that it is their divine right to rule over the Deplorables class"

But this part is not really new. What is new, as Christopher Lasch put it all the way back in 1994, is "The Revolt of the Elites", including as you put it, their mania for complete, micromanaging, condescending, control, as if the people are not people, but mere expendable cattle ... or cockroaches.

Where did this come from? How did the concept of noblesse oblige completely disappear?

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I love Lasch, he was a prophet in many ways...to take a guess at your 2nd question, I would think that "noblesse oblige" (which more or less died with the WWII generation) can only be practiced by a ruling class that is secure in their status, secure in their $$, secure in their morals, secure in their worldview...in the post-60s zeitgeist (which seems to be the demon spawn of Ayn Rand and Herbert Marcuse) there is so much social churn that no real elite class can solidify because whatever they own/think/believe could be antiquated with the next software update...in liquid modernity not even a billionaire can feel a solid foundation beneath them, and in a world that is constantly shifting, the illusion of CONTROL becomes a felt need and addiction...

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"in a world that is constantly shifting, the illusion of CONTROL becomes a felt need and addiction..."

Well said.

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"I can only guess about the psychological roots but I think the educated urban elite of America really deeply believe that it is their divine right to rule over the Deplorables class—liberals went to all the best schools, have the most cutting-edge dogma, the most valuable Rolodexes—they were about to elect the first female President and usher in a long reign of enlightened diverse technocracy"

So true, Clever P...I have personally witnessed this in my own circle...their often juvenile mocking of Trump masks what they perceive to be his threat to their power and control.

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The upper middle class objected to the vulgarity so they gave us Biden. Many of them still feel like it was the right trade.

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Biden is vulgar

And far worse than Trump

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No argument here.

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People say Trump lies all the time....however how many lies has Biden told? Who has fact checked Corn Pop and Big Momma?

Who has fact checked everything Biden said about inflation?

Biden, like Obama, has more tact than Trump, though they are both far worse than he is.

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I think Elon Musk called it correctly when he noted that we elected Biden to instill a sense of normalcy, not institute a sweeping progressive agenda.

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My belief is that this is because Trump was a true outsider and Obama was also to some degree an oustider.

The two party elites are fighting for the Empires they have created over the last two decades, and all their media allies created by the TCA are doing everything to protect and hold onto that power they paid and worked hard to acquire.

https://www.fcc.gov/general/telecommunications-act-1996

No politician in history ever went from a no one in government to President. Ever. The fact that he was unapologetic and called them out for their bullshit made them all pile on. He ended the Bush and Clinton dynasties and left them both without control when it was possible we would have had HRC > Jeb instead of Obama > Trump.

I can't stand Trump on 95% of the things he does, but I love that he flipped the bird to the elites, and even picked up blue collar democrats who felt abandoned as he did it.

What you saw in 2020 was a full court press from the old-school elites and it worked. Joe Biden, a guy who cant even form a complete sentence, with a crackhead son, won because of roughly 50000 votes.

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Right. The 2 parties and their media lapdogs/informal employees.

Any opinion on the so-called "deep state" and its possible involvement in the attempt to unseat Trump? If they had a hand in it, what were THEIR motives? I imagine they might be the same as those motives you ascribe to the 2 parties and their media.

But if security state bureaucrats of the NSA, FBI, CIA, DHS conspired to discredit Trump and attempted to remove him from office by a campaign of lies and half-truths strategically linked (I don't like the current cant "disinformation"), what does that say about who or what actually determines who holds the White House?

Is the end scene of "Being There" a dramatization of our political reality? Or does that reality work itself out in Federal offices throughout DC, sort of like "Get Smart"?

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Ha, ha, ha! Get Smart!! Prefect analogy to Democrat hegemony.

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Yeah, no. The people in power behind the politicians are exactly who did in Trump in 2020 and are leading the charge now (through political proxies) because it is in their best interests to do so. Glenn has it exactly right. You speak truth to power and power kicks you in the nuts...hard. It doesn't matter if they use the left boot or the right one. They both cause you to double over and puke up your lunch.

Ask yourself this:

If the situation were reversed, if Trump ran and won on a Democrat ticket ousting the annointed MIC successor Hilary Rodham Clinton who was a Republican and then Trump did what he did, do you think anything would have been different?

Do you really think that the oligarchs who depend so much on having the 'little people' fight amongst themselves so they do not get hip to the truth that the oligarchs are the real menace, do you think they for one second would put up with a Democrat pulling back the curtain any more than a Republican?

This has absolutely zero to do with party politics. Zero.

If you want change, get the money out of politics. Because for the oligarchs money provides the means to pull strings and the more money you have, the more strings you can pull. Which is why you have a horribly crooked tax regime where billionaires pay no taxes and the working class is up to their neck in unsustainable debt. They always make sure to leave enough strings unpulled to deal with the budget because they need to keep their cycle of privileged life moving along.

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You could see that in 2016 with CNN rigging the primary against Sanders, though like an obedient solider he fell in line. Hillary pulled her stunt on Gabbard in 2020, however, unlike Sanders, she didn't sit down and shut up.

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Then how does this have "absolutely zero to do with party politics"? I suppose Stephen here (not Stephen Sanford) means the parties are proxies for "oligarchs," in that these oligarchs determine who in each party does or says whatever.

Who exactly are these oligarchs? Why is it in their interests to have citizens fighting among themselves over cultural issues? I daresay such issues can't erase the obvious facts of inflation and Dementia Joe's growing senility and the absolute bleeding of the Treasury with this idiotic blank check to Ukraine (Zelensky and his cronies more precisely).

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There are those of us who actually pay attention to what is going on the in the world (basically everyone who is on this board and others like it). We have differing opinions on things sure, but we follow the issues closely and don't just eat what is on the plate in front of us in terms of the news.

We are the minority, a very small one. The vast majority do not venture beyond mainstream media to get their daily news fix, they do not question the narrative put in front of them at all, and worse, the repeat said narrative verbatim and say 'Hah! I know what's what, I do, the news told me so!' It's almost Suessian in it's simplicity.

The oligarchs (and I'm fairly certain that if it were a choice between a loved one dying and you naming them, the list would just pour out of your mouth, you don't need me to identify them for you),. know this and they know the less people talk about them, the less accountable they will have to be. So they give the general populace who does not want to spend the energy required to move a mouse across a screen a story that they can easily digest like pablum whose main takeaway is the opportunity for said populace to say 'At least I'm not like that asshole.'.

By getting them to focus their (pick an ugly emotion) on said 'asshole' who has been served up to them on a platter by the corporate media via various statements/briefings etc supplied by politicians or those acting on their behalf but purporting to be independent experts in their fields, they pull the focus away from their own crimiality and plant it squarely on the pig in the corner.

That sir, is why they do what they do. That is why it is in their best interests to have the 'little people' at each other's throats. It's three card monte but on a massive scale.

Is everything a complete lie? No, all good deceptions have some figment of the truth in there somewhere. And often times the facade is built around a fact. But just like the Wizard of Oz unless you look behind the curtain, you are not getting the whole story or even most of it.

This is why people like Noam Chomsky are so hated by the political establishment. Not only does he not buy the pig in the corner routine, he goes through great pains to continually point out to anyone who will listen that said pig is actually a dog with a slinky glued to it's ass.

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You could also see it with the Hanging Chads (Gore vs Bush). Naturally I don't *know* this, but I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that someone appealed to Gore not to drag this out and in return they would help him with his post political career. He chose the environment and became the poster boy for climate change. Book deal, doc film, talk shows etc. They threw just enough money behind him to make him famous but not enough to actually make a difference because it was not in their best interests to do so. So basically he got out of the way of the oligarchs for what amounted to a bag of beans.

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A year after the election USA Today did an exhaustive count of every ballot cast in Florida during the 2000 election and determined that Bush in fact won the state. What was fascinating about the decision is that although it appeared to be split on ideological lines, the reasoning wasn't nearly as close. Seven of nine Justices concurred that treating different counties differently and only recounting in those that Gore stipulated violated equal treatment before the law.

The Democratic Party still matters as the core of a collapsing authoritarian empire. The Republican Party is irrelevant.

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Gore lost. The ONLY reason it was close is that the media called the election for Gore BEFORE the polls had closed on the most Republican part of Florida, which is around Pensacola and in the Central Time Zone. The lines were long and people decided to go home without voting when they heard on their car radios that their vote wouldn't matter. Bush would have won Florida by at least 5000 votes if the media hadn't been so ignorant.

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50,000 muled votes.

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Jun 13, 2022Edited
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Trump tapped into that with nationalism. Nationalism counters the globalist, internationalist elitist network.

One must be wary with nationalism though as it's like gravity. If there is too little of it, much as one sees with globalization, you literally see nations collapse. If there is too much, you end up along Hitlerite lines.

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This is the best piece Glenn has written on Substack.

His primary point has been obvious to anyone who hasn't had his own head rammed up his ass for the last 75 years, but it's nice to see so much evidence so tidily wrapped up this way.

I'm going to tell people about this piece.

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Rather than ramp up US oil production, Biden is kissing Saudi boots for their oil. That way, he can still keep his US greenie promises.

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That’s what is so very frustrating. We have a 100 years of oil supply and we beg tyrannies for oil

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Well yes, because Saudi oil does not pollute the earth as much as US oil.

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Right, because shipping the oil some 10,000 miles from The Gulf around Africa, then to the US doesn't emit more pollution than drilling for it at home. The tankers are, after all, too large to fit through the Suez canal. Not to mention, the risks of oil spills from tankers rupturing or running aground.

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"That way, he can still..." PRETEND TO "...keep his US greenie promises." FIFY. The promises of that greenie aganda are impossible to meet, period.

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This crazy deluded ideology(climate hoax) is going to destroy our country

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You'll know when the elites are serious about this climate change nonsense when they end the MIC and our never-ending wars

The US MIC is the biggest polluter in the planet

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I know when someone doesn't believe what they say when the are against nuclear and make excuses to fly private jets. If they believed what they said, they'd be clamoring for Fast nuclear reactors that consume spent fuel as fuel.

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This, so much. He reduced our daily production from 12.5 million barrels a day to 10 million. And because it's politically palatable to have other people drill for your oil. So he gets on his hands and knees and begs them for oil, along with Iran and Venezuela.

Drill at home and you won't fund despots, nor will you have the extra pollution from transporting that fuel thousands of miles to the US.

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But they aren't. Their still drill baby drill and frack baby frack. No US greenie US promises are being kept. They were never even considered. Why ramp up US oil production why not get off Big Oil and plastic? How about a sane transition to local energy that's really green? How about ridding the US of Big Ag, Big Food, Big Oil, and stopping the globalized assholes who run this horror show. Both Climate change, endless war, endless oil, etc. or Lithium need to go.

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The greenest local energies are: nuclear (which is the safest choice, especially with the new modular reactors), hydroelectric (which however has killed at least 50,000 in the last 50 years), and natural gas, which is the cleanest of all fuels.

Wind and solar are very unreliable and dirty (the amount of waste from one wind farm or solar farm when they break down after 25 years or so is enormous).

The modular nuclear reactors are REALLY local, take up a minimal amount of land space, don't need to be on a river or lake, and will have much less waste when they reach their 50+ years. Indeed, ALL of the power reactors ever used in the U.S., have together produced only enough waste to cover a football field 50 feet high.

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So just did five minutes of research, found these articles:

https://www.cedgreentech.com/article/can-solar-panels-be-recycled

https://blog.ucsusa.org/james-gignac/wind-turbine-blades-recycling/

According to these articles, solar panels are indeed recyclable and for the most part so are windmills. The blades made of fibreglass are the exception there, but there looks to be a few initiatives underway to develop the technology to do so or to re-purpose the material at the end of it's use.

Not saying your modular nuclear reactors are not a thing, just not seeing the enormity of your enormous here. Also, any flat roof will take solar panels, and we have no shortage of those in our urban centers.

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Here is an article by a leading expert on the subject, Hans-Werner Sinn, Professor Emeritus at the University of Munich in Germany. He explains six major problems with Europe trying to transition to wind and solar-based energy:

Problem no. 1: The Paris Accord is non-binding

Problem No. 2: EU targets are “utopian”

Problem No. 3: Volatile energy supply

Problem No. 4: Innovation through government decreed central planning?

Problem No. 5: E-cars are not clean

Problem No. 6: Europe going without fossil fuels will have zero global impact

John Hinderaker has a summary here:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/06/six-major-problems-with-green-transition.php

His lecture is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5trsBP9Cn4&t=27s

(in German)

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Great link, covering all major points. Unfortunately, it’s not about solving a problem for the public, it’s about corruption and personal enrichment by those running the show…

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I think Gordo here kinda says it all. Anyone with enough money can purchase a scholar and since the pandemic they can do it online too.

When I read stuff like this I ask who benefits? When ithe answer points to a favoured few who are already loaded I tend to view said expertise with suspicion.

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There’s an enormous difference in powering homes vs powering Industry. Solar and wind ain’t gonna do it

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My feeling is that there are considerable inroads that could be made in the retail sector given the roofspace on most big box stores. Now I do not have ther facts and figures in front of me, but given the amount of solar panels you need to power a home and compared to the available space say at the local Walmart's roof, I'm thinking it could be workable if government's simply stopped catering to the fossil fuel industry and stopped sabotaging the process.

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It sounds logical. I looked into it on behalf of a group of investors, and found that the roof of a commercial structure even in the sunny south is at least one order of magnitude less than is needed, and in most cases two.

Interestingly, with all the Sturm und Drang about Green, since the beginning of the Biden Administration the campaign against natural gas has had a surprising side effect. In less than two years, we've gone from getting 20% of our energy from coal to getting 24%. Good luck finding that in the first 20 pages of results from an internet search.

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Thank you. However, the main point in the second article is the one you make in your comment. They say:

"While it’s possible to cut the blades into a few pieces onsite during a decommissioning or repowering process, the pieces are still difficult and costly to transport for recycling or disposal. And the process of cutting the extremely strong blades requires enormous equipment such as vehicle mounted wire saws or diamond-wire saws similar to what is used in quarries. Because there are so few options for recycling the blades currently, the vast majority of those that reach end-of-use are either being stored in various places or taken to landfills." That is my point as well.

The first article says:

"*Removing the aluminum frame (100% reusable)

*Separating the glass along a conveyor belt (95% reusable)

*Thermal processing at 500 degrees Celsius

*This allows for the evaporation of small plastic components and allows the cells to be easier separated.

*Etching away silicon wafers and smelting them into reusable slabs (85% reusable)"

That will take a significant amount of energy!

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As for Solar Panels my guess is the amount of energy they would need to recycle the amount of those last two (Plastic, Silicon) in any one panel would not take nearly as much energy as a panel said panel would produce in a year, much less it's lifetime given they make up 10% and 5% of the panel respectively.

And sure that quote is in that windmill article but it also goes on to say they are currently researching ways to recycle the blades or repurpose them. So, yes, the *blades* are a problem now, the *rest of the unit is not*, and they are working on solving the blade problem.

Again, just not seeing the enormity or your enormous here.

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Fast nuclear reactors are really the bridge of energy between current methods and fusion. They consume nuclear waste or 'spent fuel' as fuel, solving the nuclear waste problem. The US supply of spent fuel combined with half of Canada's would be enough to reduce emissions by 2/3 in 20 years, all with electricity being cheaper than it was prior to Covid. And that supply would last for 30 years.

It'd also allow for the realization of the hydrogen economy for transportation, creating competition for electric vehicles.

Such reactors can use thorium, allowing India to avoid becoming China 2.0 soot/smog wise, as India has been looking into thorium based nuclear power since the 1970s.

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bs. All of this especially the natural gas bit. Nuclear is not safe nor is natural gas. Recycling is not the solution it's a myth. Make the parts out of biodegradable new products. Keeping the grease in the ground is the solution. Busting up the grip these nuke and oil based industries have on global power is another. I bet the parts breaking down in x amount of years could be resolved by green technology. Not the corporate controlled Tech we use today.

Localizing instead of depending on global pipe lines and shipping oil globally is not green or even even feasible.. Nukes are poison they are 'the monkey's paws' How about local publicly owned utilities that utilize and value a green technology that uses the least toxic means for power. Science can work out solutions without Nukes, Oil, Gas, plastic or toxic chemicals like lithium. The trouble is you people have a grip on all solutions. How about we put science to work on new green solutions that are not based on the mega giants that control all power globally?

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Nuclear is not safe. Explain.

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I live down river from Hanover a former nuke site. The Columbia river is one of the hottest in the US. They are still trying to clean it up. Here you go. Our world is already way too hot. As for fracking and drill baby drill (natural gas included) forget about it.

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

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You have my sympathy.

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Nuclear is highly safe: fewer people have died from nuclear power related accidents than all of the other reliable energy sources. The only nuclear power plant accident that killed anyone was at Chornobyl, and it was because of incompetent engineering. And the nuclear "waste" is stable and safe. With the new modular reactors they will be local indeed! Unlike wind and solar they will not need long electrical power lines.

You cannot make solar cells or windmills out of "biodegradable" components. And since they are totally unreliable you have to produce the needed base power by normal sources.

Billions of dollars have been spent on researching wind and solar and they are still unreliable. They are devastating for wild life and people who are forced to live near them. 20% of the endangered species in California are being decimated by wind farms.

And they are controlled by "mega giants", as you will find out when you read up on who is seeking to use take over land for solar and wind power generation.

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The only solution that you leave open is fusion, which is 20-25 years off. Besides, fast reactors consume spent fuel as fuel and thus would solve the nuclear waste problem. I understand the sentiment with 1970s technology, but 2010+ tech?

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Excellent article. The bothersome part is that so many Americans buy into the bullshit. It’s no wonder our government relies so heavily on propaganda, it works.

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Indeed. There’s also another angle to this that needs mentioning. By the nature of the American system of government, foreign influence via such mechanisms as campaign contributions, advertising, corporate ownership, and research grants makes it just as likely that the American public is manipulated directly by actors from abroad as it is that they are being manipulated by politicians at home.

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This is a great point - I feel like everything Joe Biden has done is benefitting countries that who hate the United States.

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Pride, tradition, and intuition informs us that we, as American citizens, determine our own affairs; reality increasingly informs us otherwise. (qv, The Dying Citizen, by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson.)

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That’s because the entire Biden Administration hates the United States. Not hard to figure out. Watch what they do, not what they say…

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Your readers are fortunate to have the opportunity via Substack to read essays such as this. However, I suspect you would have difficulty selling this article to any of the traditional media outlets.

Many of us who were born during the second world war and were educated in the 40s and 50s came to believe our nation was the major hero during the war, but that belief began to be warped into what would become the standard foreign policy of our country.

The folks responsible for much of today's foreign and domestic policies are by now mostly dead.

Meanwhile, people in the U.S. were living lives untouched by the vagaries of our foreign policies and the gobbledygook spewing forth from our government's bureaucracy and Congress.

I was perhaps 7 or 8 years old when I realized, thanks to my dad, that changing perhaps our largest government agency's name from the accurate "Department of War" to the pleasant sounding "Department of Defense" was a form of propaganda that would have pleased Goebbels.

Thank you Glenn for yet another analysis that other reporters and editors might find "not fit to print."

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Unfortunately, we absorbed too much of the Nazis after WWII. As my mother used to say, "you are what you eat."

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Thank you Scuba Cat for providing my morning chuckle.

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I'm sorry Glenn, but you missed this one by a mile. Middle East Oil Politics are driven by fear of Iran. When the de facto COOs of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi refused to take Biden's calls, it was payback for Obama, and later Biden's, incomprehensible insistence on ensuring that Iran get a nuclear weapon. You can look for Gulf Cooperation Council countries eventually to attack nuclear and missile sites in Iran. I started thirty years ago trying to convince GCC countries that Israel was their natural ally. I know most of the players, and it was a long game that finally bore fruit.

Everything about Middle East oil is driven by Iran. THAT is the despot that needs to be in the cross-hairs.

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You're only proving my point. People like you are not just willing but eager to partner with and build up the world's most repressive regimes in order to serve whatever geopolitical goals you think are most important: in your case, deterring Iran.

I realize that for people who view the protection of Israel as one of the world's most important goals -- including for Americans -- that stopping Iran is going to be a top priority. Fine. I'd dispute whether the Iran Deal or the withdrawal of the Iran Deal did more to make Iranian nukes more likely.

But that debate is irrelevant to the point. Whether you know it or not, you're upholding the central point of my article. People do not view US foreign policy as a moral crusade to isolate human rights abusers and defend democracy. As your comment demonstrates, Americans are perfectly willing to prop up and strengthen the most repressive despots on the planet when doing so serves their geopolitical goals (in your case, stopping Iran in order to protect Israel).

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Ayatollah Khamenei said that nuclear weapons are "un-islamic" and he has issued a fatwa against them. That actually means something in a theocracy.

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Don’t believe everything you hear…

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Good advice. Stop watching your tv.

Does Iran have a weapons programme?

Prove it.

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Can I get a pill from your mind-reading prescription? I don't view US foreign policy as a moral crusade. I view it as selling out to others' interests, whatever best serves the Biden Kleptocracy. I have no interest in protecting Israel; I have an interest in avoiding nuclear war if possible without giving into the heckler's veto.

"People like you" is beneath you. Stop it.

We have no choice but to associate with tyrants. That's reality, and has been forever.

I've been actively following the inspection protocols set up for nuclear-armed and and near-armed states for well over thirty years. The fundamental defect in the Iran agreement is that there are no deadlines. IAEA or whoever announces an inspection, Iran disputes it, and there is no time-clock on responses in the process. It is an endless cycle. Read the damned text of the agreement. Then get back to me.

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By "people like you," I merely mean those who explicitly see US foreign policy as a transactional means of advancing US interests (however one defines those), and not as a means of crusading for moral probity or trying to change other countries by importing democracy and vanquishing tyranny.

I don't mean it is an insult. Indeed, the whole point of the article is that most people in Washington -- from both parties -- see US foreign policy exactly the same way, which is why it was so deceitful to pretend that Trump had launched some radical violation of US tradition by admitting he favored the partnership with the Saudis due to the strategic benefits it brings.

As I said, I prefer people like Trump (and people like you) who are honest about how you see foreign policy, to the liars and propagandists who pretend that they are engaged in a moral, freedom-fighting crusade. The only way to have honest and real debates about US foreign policy is to first strip away the pleasing moralistic propaganda and understand the actual motives and goals of what the US role in the world is.

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It appears we are in violent agreement.

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Exactly, those who realize that one has to deal with the unsavory in order to avoid worse situations. Dealing with Russia--as in making treaties with and business overtures to--to keep it away from China is one example.

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But as soon as the pleasing moralistic platitudes are stripped away, the house of cards will collapse. It’s never pleasant to admit to our own greed and capacity for cruelty so politicians know many are as eager to believe the propaganda as they are to spread it.

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It's kinda why all of Washington hates the hell out of Noam Chomsky.

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Israhell has 400 undeclared nukes

Come back when they are forced to disarm

See Sampson option

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Being surrounded by neighbors who repeatedly state that you should be obliterated makes that a necessary insurance policy. Granted, Gaza should be ceded to Egypt and the West Bank minus Bethlehem and East Jerusalem to Jordan, but that aside, Israel isn't the 'bad guy.'

Ironically Iran is bringing Israel together with the Arab world, as out of mutual fear they are putting aside their differences. What worries me though is the delay-the-nuke deal Biden has restarted with Iran. With the pointless conflict in Ukraine bogging down our attention and supplies, what would happen if Israel and the Gulf Arab States launched a pre-emptive strike on Iran to prevent it from developing a nuke?

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Essential book! By Seymour Hersh. I read it recently as well as “By Way of Deception” (Ostrovsky);, “Robert Maxwell, Israel’s Superspy” by Thomas and Dillon; and the “Devil’s Chessboard”, by Talbot. All these books should be read to understand how pervasive the forces of darkness are in our everyday lives. We are mere “muggles”. Glad we have Glenn on our side calling out some of the deception.

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Even if Eyeran as they call it, had 50 ICBMs, they could not use them. Would not use them.

So useless. Like DPRK.

Another boogeyman! So scary!

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Yeah, no, I'm just not going to take your word for that. But, thanks for the comforting words.

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Israhell has 400 undeclared nukes.

Why are we not insisting that THEY DISARM??

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Because they’re a sovereign nation, and can make whatever decisions they see fit?

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Like Iran?

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"Why are we not insisting that THEY DISARM??"

Not allowed.

"The Israeli agent, Ari Ben-Menashe, told journalist James Robertson he personally oversaw Maxwell and Epstein’s international “honeytrap” operation.

“Mr. Epstein was the simple idiot who was going around providing girls to all kinds of politicians in the United States,” he said. “See, f–king around is not a crime. It could be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime.”

https://www.lifeandstylemag.com/posts/epstein-book-dead-men-tell-no-tales-reveals-he-was-secret-agent/

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No one will even admit that they exist.

Where do they get the juice?

No one will take on Israel.

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Don't take my word for it. Do the analysis.

No country has ever started a war it knew it could not win, that would result, with 100% certainty, in its complete annihilation.

You on the other hand need to prove that they are working on nukes and that they will use them on someone, for some reason.

I'll wait. Thanks!

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Why do they need ICBMs????? They would take the nuclear bombs on a fishing boat and detonate over the US near the Atlantic Coast.

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You said "EMP" attack. That's why.

I suppose they could attach nuclear fishing boats to balloons and then detonate them over America.

Fantasy after fantasy.

Meanwhile a real nuclear war on Russia could start this AM.

Colon Powell is convinced that, "Russia may have WMD". He might even be right!

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They don't have any nuclear bombs.

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Fantasy after fantasy. FOR DECADES.

Israel sees Iran as a moderate threat and so has directed America to destroy them. It's an an old story.

The IAEA, like so many, have been infiltrated, corrupted and rendered useless.

From my friends Scott Horton and Gareth Porter.

https://youtu.be/Pz9PxyxDm8U

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Israhell is another despotic hateful apartheod regime whose had it out for Iran fron day one

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Ahh…more shrieking from Israel.

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"We've got one who can see!" - They Live

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Well ya know what they say,"They cry out in pain when they strike you"

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"I started thirty years ago trying to convince GCC countries that Israel was their natural ally."

Why, out of the goodness of your heart -- bless you!

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Nothing to do with the goodness of my heart. I was hired by an oil emirate's royal family to offer advice on existential matters. I called them as I saw them.

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That's fine. But after my own decades watching and digesting the "existential matters" presented regarding the M.E. cluster, combined with Upton Sinclair's observation that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it” ... I'll continue to be skeptical. I'm not even going to get started. (And that is why my initial counter was a joke.)

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How much sand from how many countries do you have in your shoes?

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You haven't caught on here that it does not matter how much an expert you (believe you) are, have you? The problem is about what has been *presented* to the public for the better part of a century. Since that is now proven FUBAR, it is not possible any more to have constructive conversations. The hand has been overplayed. In fact, that's one of the main messages of Glenn's article, even if he doesn't say so explicitly.

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Bull. GG clearly and explicitly delivers "main messages." What article did you read?

Of course it is possible to have constructive conservations. You are the one here, among others, that distrusts the public, just like the current administration, and exactly opposite the last one, and the next.

Edit: please delete my first sentence.

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Who fears Iran and why?

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Iran is the number one exporter of terrorism in the world. It has sent assassination teams after multiple other countries' leadership, including ours.

They have been blatant in advertising that they will destroy Israel and the USA. They sponsor insurrections in Yemen, Libya, and half a dozen African countries at least.They are Persians, not Arabs. Iran is an equal-opportunity source of hatred. They hate almost everybody.

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I live in Ottawa where we built a giant canal system to protect us from an American invasion.

It did not work.

Repeating all the lies you heard on your beloved teevee is dispositive of nothing.

How many millions of people did 'eyeran' slaughter since 1980 vs America?

You've got nothing but your lies, propaganda and jingoism.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

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Ad hom is just as bad as unsubstantiated assertions. Please give it a rest. I do not plan to engage with you in the future.

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M. Bill H, never engage with M. Bill O. You won't have a discussion. You will have an ad hominem filled lecture.

And the Classical Liberalism of Western Civilization is ALWAYS the target.

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Thanks for the advice. I've already told him I will not engage him further.

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Give us examples.

Let me guess? 9/11? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.

Al Qaeda? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.

ISIS? Nope, Sunni fanatics, sponsored and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulfie tyrannies.

But go on, tell how bad Iran is.

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The regime is a criminal enterprise. The real power does not lie in the ayatollahs, it lies with the Republican Guard. They own most profitable businesses in the country and have free access to the resources of a nation-state to enforce their will. When needed, the Republican Guard sends terrorists or other dupes abroad. There is no defense against an assassin willing to die.

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Lots of unfounded generalizations, there.

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Careful or Bill will refuse to "engage" with you. Then where would you be? ;)

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There are indeed a lot of generalizations. The question remains whether they are unfounded. Do your own search for reliable sources on post-Shah Iran. I prefer peer-reviewed professional journals such as Foreign Affairs, The Economist, Harvard International Review, The Globalist, Cairo Review of Global Affairs and a few others. For you, I would suggest starting with the HIR, a Cambridge, MA, publication that is in no chance of ever publishing a US POV piece in my lifetime. I assume it is held to the same high standards as the HBR for Business.

You will probably want to read books as well, such as All the Shah's Men, which covers the build-up to and through the US coup in 1953. It is quite critical of the US. See A History of Iran, Empire of the Mind by historian Michael Axworthy. And, The Guardian (surely you know it) has its own recommended reading list.

You have a bit of catch-up to do, I'm afraid. I began my own reading in 1978 as reports of the Shah's fascistic regime became impossible to ignore. I had an interest in fascist governments at the time when I was serving in the US Embassy in Colombia. I was an adult when the whole thing went down. I have no sympathy for the Shah; he was a thug, but he was OUR thug.

I knew a number of the captives detained by Iran when they over-ran the US Embassy. They were not treated well, but stories of torture seem to be out of place.

I grew up in a household that loved reading. In the early 1950s my father was pursuing a Masters in International Affairs at Georgetown, and my mother had been raised having kitchen-table discussions with Bob Lafollette, her father's friend and founder of the Progressivist Movement. I had no time for Seeing Spot Run, was a very early reader, and at four was reading my father's graduate textbooks.

Dad would try to lecture me; Mom used the Socratic Method. I liked Mom's way better.

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No, the United States is the number one exporter of terrorism.

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Source?

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Killing Hope by William Blum and numerous works by Noam Chomsky.

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Ah, opinion pieces. Good for you.

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All of history skipper.

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So the U.S.-exported terrorism has killed more than 100 million people????

Russia exported its Communist terrorism to many countries that killed massive numbers of people: China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, East Germany, Slovakia, ....

What terrorist groups did the U.S. export? The KKK? The Communists who were exported from the U.S. surely can't compete with the Russians on that!

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The CIA, US Army, and numerous civilian contractors is a good start.

Or are we not saying the quiet part outloud yet?

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BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Oh HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

You don't seriously think that anyone educated on matters of the ME buys that Zionist bullshit, do you?

SA and Israhell and the US are the number one exporters of terror in the world

How many nuclear or other Iranian scientists assassinated by Mossad, while Israhell harbors 400 undeclared nukes? How many ISIS terrorists funded armed and trained by Saudi Mossad and CIA are responsible for 500,000 Syrian murders?

Sell it somewhere else my friend

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If it were not for double standards the jingoes and hegemonists of The Empire would have no standards at all!

Someone was complaining to me that the Iranians have tried to kill ex-Presidents or some such nonsense. The CIA tried to kill Castro 638 times. They did kill many world leaders or had them killed. That's all fine though, that's all good.

America will punch you in the face over and over and if you punch back they call you a terrorist and then drone you and your family.

That's all fine though, that's all good.

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Uh... Typo there... Here, lemme help:

"The USA is the number one exporter of terrorism in the world."

THERE! Fixed it for ya! 🙃

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They advertise they’ll destroy countries?

As opposed to actually doing it, like I don’t know, the United States?

Fuckouttahere.

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How, exactly, would 'eyeran' "destroy America"?

The only countries that can do that are both now being attacked by America.

Priorities!

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We've intercepted a number of teams of assassins sent by Iran to kill former Presidents. Vary your sources of information.

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No you didn't.

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_Laughable!_

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And this was not reported?

Pull the other one.

There is now a BIG discount on your claims.

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This has been reported. Stop getting all your news from MSNBC. I watch it, Fox and a couple of Spanish-language stations from Mexico.

We are all subject to bias confirmation, me and you included. I find it important to calibrate the sources I use. Try it, you might like it.

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Killing Eyerainians though?

"That's fine. That's good. I love the idea." - you

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You sure love putting words in other mouths.

And what the hell is it with your cute euphamisms. Are you in high school?

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Iran could easily destroy the U.S. When it completes its construction of nuclear bombs it simply needs to explode them in the atmosphere above our country. Most electric systems will be destroyed.

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Iran does not have nukes, and they do not have a weapons programme.

So not really. They could not deliver them, (ICBMs are hard) and even if they could, they would not work. That aside, the US would launch a counterstrike on warning and vaporise them. Even I would be good with that.

https://noji.com/emp/emp.php

So no.

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So your source is an article titled "The Myth of EMP." Impressive. Take that up with anyone in third-year college physics and give him or her a laugh. EMP has been known to exist for many decades. It's why the President is airborne in a crisis. A jumbojet's wings dissipate the energy. Or, maybe you've got an article disputing the existence of jumbo jets also.

See that well-known right wing rag, NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/us/politics/iran-nuclear-program-tehran.html

Today NYT carried an article, "https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/us/politics/iran-nuclear-program-tehran.html"

Newsweek carried an article today about the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia telling Biden any assistance with our oil problem is contingent on Biden helping with Iran. As I said, GCC countries are terrified by Iran.

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So the IAEA is wrong in reporting on their lack of access to Iran's nuclear program sites? Most studies say they could be a year or two from having a nuclear bomb. Remember it does not have to be a 2022 version. A 1945 version would do.

Delivering them would be trivial. Put the bomb on a fishing boat and have the disguised boat travel to within 200 miles of the US coast. Delivery would not require an ICBM. It would be easy from that distance. And it would explode in the air, damaging most of the infrastructure for hundreds of miles along that coast (think Boston to Washington).

Whatever the US might be able to do after that would not concern the Iranian leaders as the Great Satan would be mortally wounded.

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"Even I would be good with that."

You fucking warmonger! Exactly what do you have against the good people of Iran?

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Word.

These Russo-philes *love* the Saudis. They are about the only thing in this world that makes PutinHitler look good in comparison.

Iran and Russia (and China) threaten independent peoples everywhere. Not today's U.S., and not the anachronistic house of Saud.

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Regime change there would be sweet. MPGA= Make Persia Great Again!!

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Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower pulled that stunt already. How’d that work out?

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The Shah was a nightmare for his people.

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Read "Reap the Whirlwind," it's well-researched accurate historical fiction that gets nothing precisely right, but manages to hit the narrative on the head, nonetheless.

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You know the 'gets nothing right' and 'hits the narrative on the head' sounds strangely like MSM to me or? Just saying.

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"Gets nothing precisely right." Please use the whole quote, not just those parts you find convenient. There is an enormous difference.

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This was meant as a joke, a satiristic send up of the Main Stream Media.

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Fiction.

Seriously.

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Seriously. It has been used for millenia to pass on mythology and cultural traditions. As you're probably aware, mythology isn't always untrue.

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Yes, seriously. Most fiction is written with point.

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So are you for yours.

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INDEED

And Iranians will put up with the Ayatollah over that US installed brutal dictator any day of the week

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Perhaps. We had a chance to find out when the religious rulers relaxed things a bit and the Green Revolution occurred. Obama was frozen in indecision, and nothing came of it.

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An excellent article! I hope in his heart Glenn Greenwald is grateful to Julian Assange that so many people can value the courage and work that is in this article.

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Greenwald was one of his earliest supporters and he visited with him in the embassy/prison.

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It's clear that the media lost its collective mind over Trump, and became obsessed with him to the point of irrationality -- opposing every single thing he said or did even if it's the same thing Democrats had previously said or done. Add to this obsession that every story which mentions Trump is clickbait for the Left and therefore profitable for the media --- witness the overblown coverage of Jan. 6. The media will support Biden and oppose Trump no matter what either says or does. The media watchdog has turned into a lapdog.

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Biden, Obama and all the rest of his international club of rich, self described, DAVOS BILDERBERG elitists who think they own the world are going to have to learn the language of how we the people have responded to tyrannical, kleptocratic despots throughout history. They know we know.

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And Elon Musk and all the rest of the technocrats and their minions.

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Another great article! Biden is looking for oil everywhere but Texas.

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Thanks again Glenn. I wonder at the value of what you are saying considering this has been a hundred year struggle but I also believe not much other choice exists. Trump was a truth teller and that is why he needed to be vanquished. And any democrat or pub who calls him an idiot was and is a blind adherent to what has been long known by the rest of the world. Who actually hates Biden more then trump in the parts of the world that are currently shunning the west. It appears that the only honest journalists are you and tucker and dore. Strange bedfellows who may not agree on approach but do agree that the direction Biden is taking the “free world” will lead to a less free world. Why can people not see how much pushback the US is receiving and understand how much it is going to impact what we once thought was a democratic west.

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I read and appreciate Greenwald's commentary and analysis on US imperial values that are presented as the will and doings of the ruling class, but the anger it evokes is that, like the German complicity in Hitler's genocidal power, Americans cannot hide their complicity by pleading ignorance or being brainwashed by MSM and government propaganda. Greenwald's revelations should be obvious to the average American who wants to be informed about American abuse of power. The greatest value I can derive from the work of writers like Greenwald is that it serves well as an eyewitness account for 22nd century Americans looking back on the failed experiment of democracy and banality of US imperialism.

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Our government has always been subject to periods of abusing our citizens or the citizens of other nations, Anthony.

But usually, such trends return to the default middle ground of our population's desire to allow the better angels of our founding to rise into prominence. Right now, I suspect our better angels are taking a prolonged bathroom break.

I've always preferred the banality of our government to the genocidal policies of Hitler, Japan, and Russia during WWII, or more recently the horror faced by Cambodians when Pol Pot and his cronies killed nearly half of Cambodia's population.

But as a rapidly aging citizen of our nation, I hope there is a special place in hell for such people as Woodrow Wilson who was throwing people into prison for only mildly criticizing his policies during the first world war.

Thank you Anthony for your comment.

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We are similar in age. I can see and acknowledge the things of which we should be proud and the things of which we should be ashamed. And, at my age, I don't view history as starting in 2010 or 2015. I saw in my youth the aftermath of a lynching. I lived with Jim Crow 1.0. There is no Jim Crow 2.0 except in some demented mind of a campaign writer.

We saved millions from perishing in Europe in World War II, while simultaneously locking up our citizens of Japanese Ancestry, and identifying members of the military as (White) or (Colored). I marched in civil rights parades, where I was beaten with sticks. I attended sit-ins where I was spat upon. I broke the color barrier in Appalachia by dating a (horrors - black!) woman in college. After the MLK shooting riots in DC, I went with my friend into the city looking to help. I was left alone, he was hassled because he was hanging out with a white guy. I should mention in here somewhere that I have few visual skills, and that was the first time I knew he was black.

There is inequality in the US, for sure. That should spark us to seek out the sources, but it doesn't. Authoritarians tell us the root of our problems is white supremacy.

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It is not. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the foremost liberal thinker of the 20th century, accurately predicted today based on illegitimacy rates. That might sound quaint and moralistic; it's cold hard fact and I don't care who you sleep with, I care about the children's outcome.

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I too remember Moynihan's warning. At the time I thought he might be guilty of "the sky is falling" syndrome. Within a decade I realized his prediction was unfortunately accurate.

Thank you Bill for sharing two very insightful comments with me and all the other folks who are responding to this Substack essay.

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I also admit to the, perhaps selfish, view that as a dissenting American I must suffer the consequences of my indifferent or consenting fellow citizens with whom I and my loved ones must share the consequences of the country’s bad actors.

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"I've always preferred the banality of our government to the genocidal policies of Hitler, Japan, and Russia during WWII, or more recently the horror faced by Cambodians when Pol Pot and his cronies killed nearly half of Cambodia's population." Except that a closer look at the doings of our government in resource wars and projection of power all over the world has been totally at the expense of millions of innocent lives that, arguably, dwarf the evils of Hitler - mostly because all they produced were more comfortable lives for the few in Europe and the USA.

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"...arguably, dwarf the evils of Hitler..."

Talk about an "evil" idea!! Stop whitewashing history with your ridiculous comparison here.

Stop comparing the evils of Fascism with the fully recognized mistakes and misadventures of the West. We correct; Fascism looks for the next victims, and always uses it Western "open-minded" apologists like you and others in this once-balanced forum.

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“We correct “? Excuse me, what planet have you been sleeping on? Pathetic and exasperating.

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You forgot "Sad."

Yes, Classical Liberalism inherently corrects (in the long run), because the individual is free and empowered politically to demand change, *if they will.* The entire history of Western Civilization has been slow improvement in the human condition. In the short term, of course, The forces of Statism within Classical Liberalism can cause regression, as we have seen recently.

Authoritarian Socialism (Fascism) dis-empowers the individual, and is only concerned with consolidating all power towards in a Fascist State, which never self-corrects.

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And thank you, M. Dennis. Sign my name to your post here.

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I was just wondering what could possibly make me more cynical, and then I read this.

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You're very fortunate if all this knowledge only make you cynical, lol.

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This can't be a new revelation for you, can it?

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I hadn’t realized the full extent of the popular hatred toward Donald Trump saying the quiet parts out loud, or just to what degree he was exposing the game. I guess I need to read more.

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OK, I get your comment now.

As for Trump, in my view he's only _slightly_ different than all the other crappy presidents we've had since ... well, my entire lifetime and I'm nearly 60! Carter wasn't NEARLY as bad as pretty much anyone you ask and he was probably the best human being we've had as president since the inception of the office. However, that didn't mean he was great.

The ONE THING Trump did that I really like and admire was at least TRYING to end the Korean war; no U.S. president has given that a try since the Armistice!

The exposing of the game, as you put it, was an embarrassment for everyone else involved in the game but hardly a revelation for anyone paying any whit of attention!

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Nope. DJT (and like-minded DeSantis, etc.) is our 180. All that is needed is you and others to get over your TDS.

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The agreements by five majority-Muslim countries to recognize Israel were led by President Trump. The Muslim countries have recognized the one country in the Middle East where all women are free, LGBTQ+ people can openly live, and all religions are welcome. No previous President has accomplished anything remotely as significant in the Middle East before President Trump.

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"The agreements by five majority-Muslim countries to recognize Israel were led by President Trump."

I'm unfamiliar with that: to what agreement do you refer?

"The Muslim countries have recognized the one country in the Middle East where all women are free, LGBTQ+ people can openly live, and all religions are welcome."

What one country is that? Israel? ...Your paragraph strongly implies you meant Israel, but that's simply not true: Only Israeli women are "free" as you state. The Palestinians in Israel are suffering under Apartheid and none of them are free. So, it's not clear to what you're referring. (And if you need evidence of what I state, it's copious and easily provided, if you need it.)

"No previous President has accomplished anything remotely as significant in the Middle East before President Trump."

Perhaps, but that accomplishment remains unknown to me. And I sure hope it's true.

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I refer to the well-known agreements (plural) between Israel and Morocco, Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Kosovo.

Israel is indeed the one country in the Middle East where all women have full freedom, though Bahrain has made considerable progress in that direction. That includes that ca 1 million Muslims living in Israel, who have full freedom. Of course the Muslims are Israeli citizens, so in a way you are correct. A woman who does not live in Israel does not have the rights of an Israeli. Muslims are members of the Parliament and hold a wide variety of other positions in the country.

Palestinians do not live in Israel. They have their own territories where they do indeed suffer greatly from the oppressive Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.

The Palestinian refugee organizations have received huge amounts of money but little has gone to the remaining refugees. In 2017, when President Trump cut our donations to the UN refugee fund, the amount the fund for Palestine had was ~$20,000 per refugee, but they received nowhere near that.

The accomplishments are well known. Even the NY Times published news article on them.

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Many feel Donald Trump and the republicans are not really superior to the Biden and the Democrats. Its easier to think so right now as the R’s take on the opposing issues. We need to look at what our politicians actually do. But it’s a slippery slope in the current corporatocracy into being a kleptocratic politician.

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As reluctant as I am to support war in general, if we're ranking which countries actually do deserve invasion and regime change...

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