Did you see Trump’s hilarious Truth Social post about this?
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No – social media passes me by. I know I am missing out on some of the good stuff, but I am also missing out on a lot of the bad stuff. 
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I’m gonna take a victory lap on my prediction that Iran might make a token response and that might be the end of this. Token response made: no casualties, airspace over Qatar and Bahrain open again. Let’s hope that’s the end of this.
- Qatari Defense Ministry:
“Qatari air defenses intercepted a missile attack targeting Al Udeid Air Base.
The accident did not result in any deaths or injuries”.
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I’m convinced it’s all Kabuki theater. Trump, Bibi and Khamenei are playing their assigned demonic roles. I’m so sick of this @$#?! bullshit. They all can go to that special hot place.
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Back in the day I used to find Trump’s antics amusing, even entertaining at times—but after seeing the same schtick for what feels like the billionth time, the routine has become incredibly tedious and boorish. I’m no longer amused.
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It’s getting old. Furthermore, what does it say about an empire when the nicest thing you can say about its leader is that he’s a master troll? The GAE is becoming a joke.
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I find myself in the cynic’s role when in the presence of ardent Trump supporters, but I can’t help feeling a bit defensive in the presence of his detractors. Really: the NICEST thing you can say about him is that he’s a “troll”? Do you regret your vote (if you did vote)? Do you want Bygone-Obamala back?
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That’s like asking me if I’d rather eat a sh*t sandwich or a bowl of sh*t ice cream. I’m sure you’ll understand if I decline both. And if the choice is (à la Mark Steyn) between going over the cliff in 5th gear with the Democrats or going over the cliff in 3rd gear with the Republicans, I say “nuts” to both of them. How did we get stuck in this red-team/blue-team dichotomy anyway? Binary thinking is for computers, not humans. But again, I don’t know why I get so worked up about this. I admit that I’m bitter about what the country, its leaders and its people have become—it used to be a beautiful thing—not a perfect thing, but beautiful all the same. Note to self: Move on.
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I understand, Your Dark Majesty. I hope you feel better.
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Let’s remember that old saying – Never let the Perfect become the enemy of the Good.
The real issue here is the failure of universal suffrage “democracy”, and the resulting creation of a Political Class which is more secure in their positions than the members of the old Soviet Politburo.
Unfortunately, the only historically-demonstrated way to correct that kind of failure is total collapse of the regime, as happened to the Soviet Union.
Until that inevitably happens, let be grateful for something that is a little better rather than a lot worse. It is more than we deserve.
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I’m afraid our Dark Majesty will say, okay we don’t have the perfect, but neither do we have the good. Moi, I’m kinda a perverse chameleon with pessimism, it depends on the context, like, the color of the background at the time. In an irritatingly sunny optimistic discussion, I get darker and darker- and vice-versa. I mean—no, no, no, I’m not a turncoat, I’m always true to Trump darlin’ after my fashion….
(Oh but just one thing dear @Gavin : “It’s more than we deserve”? Whaa’? Speak for yourself: I as a human being, am the Crown of Creation! I 
humanity, there’s no other species into which I would rather have been incarnated. C’mon, lookit all the wonderful things we’ve created despite cranky ol’ Mother Earth’s evident desire to eradicate us. 
take your pick; even I am not sure what to make of that..)
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Oh, I totally agree. I don’t believe in utopia and I’d be totally thrilled out of my mind with a two steps forward, one step back approach—at this point I’d even take oscillating between one step forward and one step back—but from my modest viewpoint, it seems like we’re on a one step forward (at best) and two or more steps back program.
Wise words—thank you for that. Life in America and much of the West remains comparatively good at the moment, and we should be extremely grateful for the blessings that we have and savor them while we can. I don’t know why I’m channeling Mark Steyn today, but he once said something along the lines of “Life in a declining empire can be quite pleasant—right up until the end”. Perhaps it’s a personal failing, but I have a hard time savoring the good times when I see the trajectory that we’re on and where it will ultimately lead. For what it’s worth, I don’t care about myself, I just feel sorry for all the young people I see around me who will bear the brunt of the fall. We failed them.
Yup.
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I’m not quite as pessimistic as that. Maybe more like one step forward, one back. Certainly better that two steps back and zero forward. Nevertheless, it leaves the country on the same downward trajectory, just slower.
Those old enough can hope to run out the clock but it’s not so great for their descendants. The good news is that there can be rebirth. In the meantime, there will be much suffering. Weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men, etc.
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And weak women who pretend to be strong only create trouble…
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What if Obamala Hapless were president right now?
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Well, for starters, (s)he probably wouldn’t have bombed Iran (which now appears to have been a huge “nothing burger”—far from the proverbial “kill shot” as initially claimed by Trump) and would have made a deal with Iran (you know, à la “art of the deal”) with signatories including Russia, China, UK, France and the EU, that put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and allowed international inspections.
The irony here is that if we lived in an alternate reality where Obama hadn’t made the JCPOA back in 2015, and if Trump had made the **exact same** deal with Iran right now now, he (Trump) would probably be hailed as some kind of heroic peacemaker by MAGA.
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I agree.
Do you think the deal in 2015 was preventing Iran from continuing to develop nuclear weapons?
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Short answer: I don’t know—there are a lot of factors involved—although during the time the agreement was in effect, I think it probably did prevent Iran from actually taking the final step to create a working nuclear weapon. What I know (or think I know) is that that latest bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities probably did very little to prevent them developing a nuclear weapon—it might even have had the opposite effect.
What really irritates me is that we have no problem sending B-2s off to bomb a foreign country that arguably presents no direct or immediate threat to the US, but we can’t even build a damn border wall or balance the budget.
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No. I thought it guaranteed that they COULD get ‘em within a decade. Oh and also, we paid for it, pallets o’ cash..
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The real problem with Iran is not whether they build a nuclear bomb – the problem is the decades of chanting “Death to America” and threatening to genocide Israel. (We have to say “genocide” these days – it is the “in” word used by all the best people). Maybe if Iran dialed back its rhetoric, things might be easier.
As for building a bomb – yes, the first nuclear weapon exploded in anger was an enriched uranium device, Little Boy over Hiroshima. Since then, the world has moved on to plutonium implosion bombs because enriched uranium bombs are judged to be too big to be launched by missile. They would be OK for shipping container bombs, but no-one wants to talk about that.
Lots of discussion about enriching uranium in Iran with large numbers of very delicate centrifuges, but not much information about whether Iran has quietly built the capacity to make plutonium in its nuclear reactors – especially in reactors which may not have been disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And who would trust Obama & his lady friend to have asked any awkward questions about that?
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