Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Let there be snark.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Iran / Trump Wanted To Bomb Iran

Trump Wanted To Bomb Iran

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Donald Trump and his toadies are trying to wreck as much as they can on the way out.

President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday. (New York Times)

This is, of course, what a number of people have been driving for in pressing Trump to break out of the nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) and keep adding sanctions in their “maximum pressure”. They have hoped that Iran would behave in a way that would give them an excuse to bomb.

Iran, however, seems to be fine with the JCPOA and would prefer to have the US back in the agreement. What they have been doing is taking reversible steps to indicate that they have a say in this matter too. That increase in the stockpile of nuclear material can easily be given up or diluted down.

So the brilliant plans for a war haven’t been working. But hey, why not on the way out?

At the same time, Trump’s new Acting Alternative Maybe Secretary of Defense is saying words about withdrawing from Afghanistan.

What these people don’t understand is that war isn’t as action comix portray it. You need to move planes and ships and land vehicles and people to do these operations. You can’t bomb Iran tomorrow.

You could send a few missiles in, but they aren’t enough to damage Iran’s underground facilities, which most of them are now. And Iran has air defense, which might shoot down those missiles. So you might want to take out that air defense first. And that takes more planes and crews.

Likewise, you don’t just say “Withdraw the troops.” Controlled withdrawal is one of the most difficult of maneuvers. There are only a few routes for US troops in and out of Afghanistan, with many unfriendly people around. And is it really cool that there’s a good chance that a full civil war will break out if the Americans and Europeans leave? Oh yes – we might just let the Europeans know we’re leaving so they can plan.

In short, more ignorance and potentially death from the Trump clown squad. They can’t withdraw from the White House fast enough for me.

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  2. 2.

    Gin & Tonic

    Iran, however, seems to be fine with the JCPOA and would prefer to have the US back in the agreement.

    Too bad nobody in the White House seems to have brains enough to recognize that.

  4. 4.

    Punchy

    Cant switch presidents in the middle of a war, or so they told Roosevelt.  And Bush II.  Thats Trump’s play.

    And destroying a nuclear site via bombs would just……be….Chernobyl II, Nuclear Bugaloo, right?

  5. 5.

    Benw

    If Trump asked for the nuclear football to launch a strike on Iran, would they give it to him now? I’d like to think they wouldn’t but I don’t know anymore what people will do for Trump

  8. 8.

    hells littlest angel

    Trump could do a pincer attack on the Middle East from East Africa and Southern Europe, but he leaves himself open to an attack on Alaska from Kamchatka. That would be … risky.

  9. 9.

    LadySuzy

    Pompeo leaves Friday for a 10-day trip to seven countries: France, Turkey, Georgia, Israel, the Unites Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

    I’m not very versed in foreign policy. Someone here having any idea of what Pompeo is working on ???

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    Maybe related? TheBulletin (from July):

    An explosion and fire at a workshop at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on July 2, which destroyed the better part of an entire building, was followed by a flurry of speculation about the cause. Perhaps a domestic dissident group had planted a bomb, a foreign government had conducted a cyberattack, or an underground gas pipeline simply exploded by accident. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization announced on July 5 that it had determined the cause, but was withholding that information because of “security considerations.” Still, there is mounting circumstantial evidence that Israel and the United States were involved in what was a deliberate act of sabotage.

    There is also a growing debate about the larger impact on Iran’s nuclear program. Iranian officials estimate that the incident had delayed advanced centrifuge production by several months. Outside experts have gone further, claiming a setback of one or two years. If the United States or Israel did have a hand in the accident, top CIA and Mossad officials might be reveling in their success. But would such an operation be worth it, given Iran’s likely response?

    The answer is no. Sabotage is not a long-term solution for the political problem posed by Iran’s nuclear program. To the contrary, a fuller consideration of Tehran’s calculus, including Iran’s domestic political debate, reveals that covert operations will only undermine long-term nonproliferation efforts. Hardline voices in Tehran will become more motivated to rapidly advance Iran’s nuclear program and will be emboldened in their push to limit cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on inspections.

    […]

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  13. 13.

    boatboy_srq

    President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks.

    He had one great big option already: resume the investigation into Halkbank and halt its lending program to Iran.

    But that would put an end to tRump properties in Turkey. So that won’t happen.

  14. 14.

    Mike in NC

    Trump wants to cut and run from Iraq and Afghanistan, coward that he is. He’ll burn it all down if Moscow Mitch lets him.

  17. 17.

    lofgren

    What if we use one of those helicarrier things? I saw five movies about them, they couldn’t have just made those up.

  20. 20.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Mike in NC: More likely he’ll leave such a mess that Biden will be left in an untenable position and forced to withdraw completely.

    Then Trump and Republicans can claim that Biden is the coward who lost the war.

    Remember that Republicans loudly blamed Obama for following the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement left to him by W.

  21. 21.

    bbleh

    Alas, this is win-win for Trump.  On the one hand, he creates controversy, which is his metier, and on the other, he makes trouble down the road for Biden, no matter how it all turns out.

    The latter, of course, undermines the interests of the United States, and the former does no good and arguably does harm, so any government official who participates in these actions might reasonably be considered to be violating their oaths of office.

    I wonder what would happen if a few examples were made, if a few of the most obvious cases of sabotage were put under a spotlight, prosecuted to the max administratively — and if appropriate criminally — and the individuals hung out to dry.

    Not the Biden people’s style, I know.  But perhaps it might knock some sense — or at least some fear — into the saboteurs.

  23. 23.

    mdblanche

    Unpossible. I’ve heard on good authority from leading politics knowers on Twitter that Donald is the dove and it’s the Demoncrats who are the hawks.

  25. 25.

    sdhays

    Does anyone know if the “Acting” Secretary of Defense is likely legally in his office or is he another Chad Wolf who isn’t actually the Acting Secretary of DHS because his appointment didn’t follow the law for succession?

  28. 28.

    Emma from FL

    Can we please stop writing off Biden before he even takes office? When it’s not Mitch the Invincible Ghoul it’s Trump the Yapping Chihuahua. They will destroy Biden! They will make it impossible for him to succeed! We will lose the whole Congress in two years! There will be armed insurrection!

    Christ have mercy. The next four years will be hard enough without the Sturm und Drang.

  30. 30.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Emma from FL:

    This. And I know I was being overly negative before, but I think we have a chance to make progress. We can’t just pre-emptively give up

  34. 34.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Emma from FL: Thank you. Folks need to calm the fuck down. None of these alternative scenarios being proposed can’t happen overnight. And enough smart people who recognize that Trump is a temporary problem know how to throw sand in the gears to slow this nonsense down. Breathe.

  36. 36.

    mdblanche

    @Emma from FL: The failure of Biden’s presidency is inevitable, just like his failure to win the primaries was inevitable, and his failure to beat Trump was inevitable. Do the people who keep underestimating Biden ever get tired of being wrong?

  37. 37.

    aliasofwestgate

    It’s annoying af, but i think whoever the Biden-Harris admin get going in place of all this shit Dampnut’s admin is tossing in the air on the way out, is going to be excellent at their job and more than likely cleanup. A huge advantage of being around as long as Biden has, is knowing who to get ahold of for things like this.

  38. 38.

    Lyrebird

    @Gin & Tonic: Too bad nobody in the White House seems to have brains enough to recognize that.

    I am trying to think of some witty remark about just how many Cheryl posts you could apply this comment to, or Adam or John or any front pager’s posts…

     

    Not succeeding, but I am thankful for the Pentagon folks who are busily making sure the kabuki lasts through Jan 20.

    FWIW no matter how much I may disagree with some of the Lincoln Project folks in the future, I truly believe that their neener neener ads helped protect all of us, keeping the Trumpasaurus distracted by his own ego.YMMV

  41. 41.

    brantl

    I bet money GWB is walking around beaming at people, saying: “See? I’m not half as dumb as this putz in there, now!”. And the damndest thing is, he’d be right. I didn’t think that we could have gotten a president dumber than Shrub, but goddamn it, we did.

  42. 42.

    Gvg

    In Pompeo’s shoes, I would be trying to be hard to reach by Trump for the next couple of months. Just don’t hear the nuttiest orders for a little longer…

  44. 44.

    Martin

    @Punchy: Nah. If Trump wants to run again in 2024, a good strategy from his perspective would be to fuck things up so badly that everything gets blamed on Biden. McConnell will be key to that strategy.

    I mean, this is the point in the movie where Trump enlists Michael Flynn to help him plant a bomb in the White House set to detonate at 12:01 on Jan 20.

  45. 45.

    Lyrebird

    @Emma from FL:

    “Trump the Yapping Chihuahua” – oh that is a beautiful turn of phrase!  Plus you are right.  Not like I know much, just chiming in.

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Yes, sir.

    The sand-throwing department is working quiet overtime, I bet.  And I’d also bet there are a lot of career people breathing a sigh of relief with every reasonable act coming from the Prez Elect.  I hope so at least.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    Suppose it ought to be mentioned that blowing up any nuclear stockpile is not exactly the brightest of ideas.

    As well as that the international inspection regime is working as intended, changes in materiel aren’t being done furtively.

  47. 47.

    Poe Larity

    Jared’s UAE agreement probably had some strategic agreements, like letting Israeli F-35s (and possibly F-117s) operate unmarked from Al Dhafra air base for special occasions. Problem is you need real airplanes to take out really hard targets. But maybe Bibi could be persuaded to cause a kerfuffle that would trigger a missile attack on one of our allies.

  48. 48.

    Dan B

    Trump never ceases to amaze.  It is 99.999% unpossible for me to agree with Moscow Mitch but… he thinks that withdrawing from Afghanistan would make it a Taliban hellhole and a launching site for terrorist attacks.

    Trump is amazing!  /

  50. 50.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I know this isn’t right but,honestly, these are extraordinary circumstances. I think the military should just tell Orange Dbag that they are doing the withdrawal and not do it. It’s not like he’s going to go to Afghanistan and check it out for himself. He’s too stupid, lazy and cowardly.  I am disappointed at the number of people who blindly mark the ‘R’ box regardless of how crooked or stupid the person is. I admit I kind of do it but I honestly haven’t had to deal with voting for an utterly stupid corrupt Democratic candidate in Arizona.

  51. 51.

    Another Scott

    @sdhays: There was a tweet that said that the Deputy Secretary is legally the next in line and supposed to be Acting while Donnie nominates someone.  Of course, Donnie doesn’t feel bound by legal niceties…

    True? Dunno. I haven’t heard anything about it recently (but haven’t looked).

    DoD Org Chart.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    If Trump wants to run again in 2024, a good strategy from his perspective would be to fuck things up so badly that everything gets blamed on Biden. McConnell will be key to that strategy.

    It would actually work out better for Trump if he were graceful in defeat. But he is too much an arrogant asswipe to understand that.

    I expect Trump to continue to be a fool and for McConnell to obstruct. But Biden is doing a good job so far and just will have more to clean up. Unfortunately Trump’s base will stew and be angry until 2024 and beyond, but we know that they can be defeated.

  56. 56.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Dan B: Donnie has had me agreeing stuff that Bill Kristof, Jen Rubin, Rick Tyler and Rick Wilson have said. Trust me Donnie brings lots of people together.

  58. 58.

    Kent

    @Emma from FL:

    Can we please stop writing off Biden before he even takes office? When it’s not Mitch the Invincible Ghoul it’s Trump the Yapping Chihuahua. They will destroy Biden! They will make it impossible for him to succeed! We will lose the whole Congress in two years! There will be armed insurrection!

    Christ have mercy. The next four years will be hard enough without the Sturm und Drang.

    This.

    The presidency is immensely powerful as both Trump and Bush demonstrated.  Mitch can block new legislation.  But he can’t to all that much at all to reign in executive actions, not without a veto proof majority in both the House and Senate.

    Obama essentially governed via executive action and regulation for the last 6 years of his presidency and they were not bad years.  We didn’t get a lot of shit done, like immigration reform and a new voting rights act.  But they were still decent years

    And one thing Mitch can’t do is block spending bills from getting a vote.  They will end up with some sort of conference compromise between the Senate and House when it comes to budgets like there always has been.  They will go all austerity of course.  But the GOP depends on the federal budget as much as Dems.  So deals will eventually get done.

  61. 61.

    Cheryl Rofer

    The Times article doesn’t say that Trump wanted to use nuclear weapons, but who knows. Again, there would have to be prep for that.

    The “football” is for rapid response, and primarily targeted at Russia. I don’t know if that targeting could be changed. Or if the military aide would take such an order as being lawful. I would hope that the aide and their superiors have had some hard discussions, although the military is very oriented to “Yes Sir!”

    Nine more weeks.

  62. 62.

    jonas

    Wait, wait, wait, wait. So one of Trump’s outgoing gambits is supposedly to unilaterally withdraw from Afghanistan because it’s an unending war that virtually everyone agrees we should have closed the books on long ago and America is sick of unlimited military commitments to nationbuilding, sacrificing our troops for something that has no clear solution, etc., etc….

    And his *other* gambit is to bomb Iran, which will certainly *not* turn into a major conflagration requiring unlimited commitment of American treasure and blood?

    Roger that.

  63. 63.

    sdhays

    @Another Scott: Thanks.

    @Brachiator: It would actually work out better for Trump if he were graceful in defeat. But he is too much an arrogant asswipe to understand that.

    It really depends on what the end game is, and I don’t think anyone really knows what that is, since none of them are very bright. But I think at least part of what Javanka are doing is to further to weaponize the Republican Party to protect them all from prosecution. They want prosecutions to be maximally partisan and pre-taint any charges against him by the Biden DoJ or state DoJ’s in the hope that they decide it isn’t worth the cost.

    The next best thing to being immune is being too hot to touch.

  64. 64.

    jonas

    @brantl: Wait and see who they’ll nominate after Trump. Sweet Jesus in a chicken basket.

    Actually, they’re actually pretty much done with nominations and party politics and democracy and all that shit. Wait and see who they’ll support in the eventual coup.

    ETA: Okay. Deep breaths. Not “eventual” coup. Probable coup.

  65. 65.

    Rich Gardner

    Just thinking about the complexity of military operations and the need to move lots of people and equipment, I read a paperback on World War II as a tween and was very struck by an operation. The Allies had either broken out of the Normandy beach-head or were about to. Der Fuhrer didn’t want to move any divisions from Calais to Normandy, so he decided to move an armored division from the Eastern Front. Even in an absolute dictatorship, it took a great deal of time and effort and logistical work to move that division!. Not sure when it finally got there, but the Allies had made so much progress by then, it was pretty much irrelevant!

  66. 66.

    featheredsprite

    I remember reading a few months ago that in Pentagon war games between US and Iran, Iran won. Every time,

  67. 67.

    Mike in NC

    @jonas: Trump decided pissing away $$$ in Afghanistan for 20 years was a bad investment, so he wanted to piss away more $$$ on a 20 year quagmire in Iran.

  68. 68.

    mrmoshpotato

    I started reading this thinking it was rehashing the old “Why do we have nuclear weapons if we don’t use them?” that the Soviet shitpile mobster manbaby whined during the 2016 campaign but HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

    “WWWWWAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!  LET’S BOMB IRAN!!!!!!” (as John Bolton dies from a bone-shattering orgasm)

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    Trump decided pissing away $$$ in Afghanistan for 20 years was a bad investment, so he wanted to piss away more $$$ on a 20 year quagmire in Iran. 

    Of course!

    Soviet. Shitpile. Bankrupt. CASINOS!

    (Yes, I know, laundering Russkie rubles, but it had to be said.)

  70. 70.

    cain

    @Mike in NC:

    Might want to add another $ and a shit ton more lives. Iran can actually fight back and will. Now their main problem is that Israel join in and try to fuck with them too.

    It could lead to a full on middle eastern war though because SA might also want a piece of Iran.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    @Mike in NC: Vlad needs higher oil prices.

    Prince Bone Saw needs higher oil prices.

    Donnie wants higher oil prices too, for his American oil baron supporters.

    Therefore:

    Step 1 – Attack Iran

    Step 1b – Iran attacks KSA, etc.

    Step 1c – US withdraws from sites around the world to increase presence in Middle East to “Protect our Friends” from “Iranian Aggression”

    Step 2 – Oil prices spike

    Step 3 – World economy crashes, again

    Step 4 – Oil prices crash from lack of demand

    Step 5 – No profit.

    Genius Donnie can’t look beyond Step 2.

    Fortunately, DoD planners can.  They know it would be a disaster.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    mrmoshpotato

    @cain: OMG! Another comment ending in 0! YES!

    LOL!  Good on ya, cain!

    It could lead to a full on middle eastern war though because SA might also want a piece of Iran.

    Hello draft reinstatement!  Guess who’s going?  All of the Trump trash and Hillary-hating selfish shitstains!  What?  Some of them are in their 70’s+? and/or some of them are women?  FUCK ‘EM!

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @sdhays:

    It would actually work out better for Trump if he were graceful in defeat. But he is too much an arrogant asswipe to understand that.

    It really depends on what the end game is, and I don’t think anyone really knows what that is, since none of them are very bright.

    I don’t know that Trump ever has much of an end game. And no, he is not smart, but he doesn’t have to be. He is cunning, though, and brutish. This has worked well for him and is still working as he suckers the GOP leadership into continuing to protect him and further his interests.

     

    But I think at least part of what Javanka are doing is to further to weaponize the Republican Party to protect them all from prosecution. They want prosecutions to be maximally partisan and pre-taint any charges against him by the Biden DoJ or state DoJ’s in the hope that they decide it isn’t worth the cost.

    I don’t think that Biden is going to prosecute Trump. Aside from Balloon Juice offenses, what federal crimes has Trump committed for which there is clear evidence?

    Trump’s bullshit should have no effect on state investigations of his shady tax practices. The IRS may come around and take a look, but that does not require any intervention from DOJ.

    Also, who knows whether Trump will say to himself, “Oh, I beg your pardon” to himself and try to give himself a bigly Get Out of Jail Free card.

  76. 76.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    Also, who knows whether Trump will say to himself, “Oh, I beg your pardon” to himself and try to give himself a bigly Get Out of Jail Free card.

    That wouldn’t work on state charges, though

    This has worked well for him and is still working as he suckers the GOP leadership into continuing to protect him and further his interests.

    He will be gone on 1/20 and there’s nothing he or his GOP enablers can do about that. I mean, I guess he’s throwing sand in the gears for Biden, but hopefully some of that can be mitigated by the civil service

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    trump’s end game is money and adulation galore. And obviously he goes for adulation more than money, because he is always more worried about how much money people think he has over how much he really has. Maybe because while he can say billion, I doubt seriously that he could tell you how many zeros there are in one billion.

  80. 80.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Also, who knows whether Trump will say to himself, “Oh, I beg your pardon” to himself and try to give himself a bigly Get Out of Jail Free card.

    That wouldn’t work on state charges, though

    Which is exactly what I said.

    This has worked well for him and is still working as he suckers the GOP leadership into continuing to protect him and further his interests.

    Honestly, I don’t see how. He will be gone on 1/20 and there’s nothing he or his GOP enablers can do about that. I mean, I guess he’s throwing sand in the gears for Biden, but that’s it

    If Trump had brains and political skill, he could create a third party and leave the GOP a smoking husk of itself. Fortunately for the GOP, Trump is a rage-filled moron. But there is no rational reason for the GOP to be backing Trump right now. None. They are not really gaining political capital from any of this.

    It may be that the GOP leadership fears what influence may have as a former president.  And here, the reality of Trump’s growing irrelevance doesn’t matter if he continues to play the GOP like the suckers they are.

    And I think that the people who voted for Trump are just like him. Stupid and resentful. And they will keep their resentments burning, for Trump or for the next right wing asshole who comes along.

    Note also that I think that the Democrats will be able to deal with any bullshit that Trump throws up, but it is unfortunate that his dumb ass base will never give up their resentments or ignorance.

     

  81. 81.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    trump’s end game is money and adulation galore.

    This is an ongoing, bottomless pit of a goal, not an endgame.

    And obviously he goes for adulation more than money, because he is always more worried about how much money people think he has over how much he really has. Maybe because while he can say billion, I doubt seriously that he could tell you how many zeros there are in one billion.

    I’m not really interested in the amount of Trump’s wealth because, as you rightly note, it is more phantom than real. And even though he is over leveraged, his plutocrat buddies, or Putin, or the Saudis, will probably always take care of him.

    Unless NY finds a way to send him to jail because of his taxes.

    And here is a dirty little secret. NY may tread lightly as far as Trump is concerned because many of the other New York real estate moguls use the same tricks as Trump. And sadly, I am not sure that state officials really want to shake the plutocrat tree very hard.

    Another side note, because I am feeling just that cynical today.  I am all for Biden revamping the tax code. But if he just funded IRS enforcement like a sum’ bitch, this is what he would find in the sofa cushions of the plutocrats.

    Almost 880,000 high-income Americans owe $45.7 billion in overdue taxes from 2014 to 2016, the report found. The top 100 high-income non-filers during that time had estimated tax due totaling $9.9 billion.

    The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) didn’t investigate 42% of those cases, representing $20.8 billion in lost tax revenue, because of lack of oversight and dwindling resources.

    I’m sure that the amount has gone up since 2016.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Real net worth. Back a few years ago Forbes reassessed what they thought he was worth for the Forbes’s Who’s The Wealthiest Asshole and they moved him from 13 billion to 3 1/2 billion. I doubt that included his underhanded loans from DB, so I’d bet it was something a lot less than that. But he’s got an “unsecured” loan from DB for around a billion due in 2-3 yrs so I’d bet that 3 1/2 billion is rather high and does not include how little he actually has of his money invested in any of his “properties.” The way he goes through money and the reported financial health of his cock roach factories/hotels/crappy lawn with metal cups with flags in them tells me he’s damn broke. I’m not sure he’s ever made a dime in his entire life. There may be people on this blog who have a higher income than he actually does. He’s not in any way smart, although he is rather ruthless but that is tempered by him being a master chickenshit. Never forget that every thing is about him, and how he LOOKS to everyone else, not how well he actually does. Narcissism is a really nasty drug and he’s got one of the most full blown cases, along with the IQ of a garden slug.

  83. 83.

    tokyokie

    @cain:

    It could lead to a full on middle eastern war though because SA might also want a piece of Iran.

    SA doesn’t want a piece of Iran; the House of Saud is perfectly happy to let U.S. military personnel die in order to eliminate the threat of its most-hated regional rival. And all that military hardware the U.S. has sent to SA over the years will be employed to suppress the inevitable uprising of the significant Shi’a minorities in SA’s oil-producing provinces.

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    I wouldn’t have used endgame with pretty much anyone else but with trump, I don’t give him the were with all to be able to do more than figure that if he looks good, he is good. To me that’s endgame. In the case of anyone else not afflicted with narcissism to his degree, I’d say your take is perfect. With him I don’t see him able to even consider creating goals other than If I look good, I am grand.

    I’ve been seeing his name and his stupidity since the mid/late 70s and I can not recall him ever doing anything positive, involving having money, making money, saving money, in any way having the kind of money his start in life gave him.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @tokyokie:

    It could lead to a full on middle eastern war though because SA might also want a piece of Iran.

    SA doesn’t want a piece of Iran

    I think you are absolutely right about this. SA hates Iran, but they don’t have any territorial ambitions.

     And all that military hardware the U.S. has sent to SA over the years will be employed to suppress the inevitable uprising of the significant Shi’a minorities in SA’s oil-producing provinces.

    You make a good point here as well.

    Any US adventure involving Iran is complicated by the fact that Russia is now kind buddy-buddy with Iran.

    I don’t think that Trump can organize any military adventure here, either directly or using Israel as a proxy agent. But he is stupid enough to stumble into some nasty crap if the US military establishment doesn’t keep an eye on him.

  86. 86.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    Well the biggest thing the conservative wealthy have been trying to do is to cut government back to below the absolute minimum and spend all that is “necessary” on the military (and not a fucking dime more to actually support the troops) to reduce any chance of getting audited and charged with fraudulent income reporting. But you know that. I’d say since at least Raygun (and probably well before that) the wealthy conservative dogma has been that they should be able to do anything to make money, including stealing it, and that taxes are for the little people to pay, to keep them in line. So they got the spigot turned down to drops so that the IRS wouldn’t have the money to go after the big thieves, like the Mercers and the rest of them that owe, how much was it $45.7 billion. Over 2 yrs. What is the actual figure owed? 100 billion? 200 billion? That amount is after the tax percentage was dropped how much?

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    I’ve been seeing his name and his stupidity since the mid/late 70s and I can not recall him ever doing anything positive, involving having money, making money, saving money, in any way having the kind of money his start in life gave him.

    I agree that Trump is a useless sack of crap who has wildly inflated his actual wealth. But his backers and the GOP are afraid of him or think that they can still use him to their advantage. We will see what happens.

    CNN is laying it out plain. Trump’s fragile ego is hurting the country.

    President Donald Trump’s refusal to coordinate with President-elect Joe Biden on the critical Covid-19 vaccine is bringing a staggering possibility into clearer view: that an outgoing US commander in chief is actively working to sabotage his successor.

    This is just sad. But it will play out like this until the GOP leadership gets some sense and stands down.

    Oh yeah. I forgot about the Mercers. The disputed amount that the IRS says they owe is at least $7 billion.

  89. 89.

    PenAndKey

    @The Moar You Know:

    Ask William Brydon about withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

    It goes to shit no matter what you do.

    I’ll be honest, as someone who has seen us in a “forever war” in Afghanistan, literally, my entire adult life I’ve thought for years that unless there’s some grand geopolitical, United States threatening reason why we should be there that I’m missing it’s long time for us to get out. As long as we offer the people who have helped us a helicopter ride out, and the papers to settle in the US if they want, I don’t see why we don’t wash our hands of the whole place. Afghanistan isn’t our land, they aren’t our people, and ultimately if they have a conflict it’s not our problem beyond where we stick our noses in it. I’m sick of the US acting like the world’s police force And I’m equally sick of watching my classmates (and their kids) grow up fighting a war our parents and grandparents had no business starting in the first place.

  90. 90.

    Kathleen

    @mdblanche: Thank. You. So appropriate! I always need “glass is half full” reminders since I’m Irish Catholic female raised in the 50 ‘s and can go from hope to despair in .005 nanoseconds.

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Are there any real estimates of how much wealth Trump has?

    Do you know how to spell and use Google? There are a ton of estimates, all different, and you can look at them and decide which ones make more sense for you. I have given up on doing other people’s research for them, unless it is an interesting question to me.

    Nothing is more boring than Trump and his money.

    LOOK IT UP, GOKU!!

  92. 92.

    PenAndKey

    @J R in WV: I have given up on doing other people’s research for them, unless it is an interesting question to me.

    Then don’t. There’s no need to be a jerk about it when Goku is making conversation about a topic that is rife with speculation, has no definitive answer, and is pertinent to the events being discussed.

  93. 93.

    IbnBob

    Between Stephen Miller telling him about Götterdammerung and Paula White preaching Samson in the temple, we’re in Trump’s Last Days.

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