The Frankish Reich

I get this from the enlisted men, who'll always have a chip on their shoulders. But from officers? Sherpa and Hegseth ought to know better.

We see this with Hegseth, who famously called JAG Officers (the military's professional lawyer corps) "Jagoffs." It's more of the old Rambo fantasy - "this time are you gonna let us win?" The idea that if you simply took all these ridiculous legal and bureaucratic shackles off our fighting men (yes, they mean men; sexism is part and parcel of it), we would be able to quickly and irrevocably take over any country or territory we wanted. Trump ran against this! But here we are, with Sherpas in charge not just of tactics (where they are still the best, and by a wide margin) but also strategy.

Right on cue. Kind of like the former football players who always disparage an analyst because he "never played the game." So who was right about strategy here? U.S. Intelligence Officers - who predicted that taking our Khamanei would not cause the Iranian regime to fall - or Trump/Netanyahu, who disregarded that advice? Or Caine, who could have, well, Raised (not Razed) Caine about the decision to go to war.

Could be dangerous. Please stop one or the other after 20 minutes.

⬆️ I don't usually let people choose their own nicknames, but I'll make an exception for BillsFanNC. "Greg F*cker" is perfect.

"You just grab them by the p*ssy. When you're a star they let you do that." So it was his obligation as a star to grab them by the p*ssy. He never liked doing that. He may have hated that he had to do it; it was noblesse oblige. The length you guys go to excuse inexcusable behavior still has the capacity to shock.

I see Trump brought his Shadow American Governance Council with his to China, with Elon as Chair.

Thank you for the reminder. So I wonder why Trump hasn't sought to charge these "pardoned" people? Could it be that he wants his own preemptive pardons to have full effect after his presidency is over? Maybe, just maybe??

Reminder that to them everything is a conspiracy. Bad things don't ever happen because, well, bad things happen. Reminder that to them everything is a conspiracy. Bad things don't ever happen because, well, bad things happen.

EDIT: I still don't understand why this is political. I started out thinking the wet market origin hypothesis was true. After all, they were selling all kinds of wild animals harvested from wherever some unscrupulous merchant could bag them, including areas where similar viruses are endemic. I then thought there was clearly something to the lab leak hypothesis. It seems too great a coincidence that Wuhan hosted a lab researching this exact type of thing. Now I'm seeing - not making it up - serious scientific investigations pointing more toward the wet market origins. To me the more embarrassing theory for China has always been the putrid wet market. But somehow the MAGAs became convinced that the lab origins thing proved that China and U.S. scientists did something sinister. This is to support their ridiculous "Plandemic" crap. Why? Next thing you'll tell us you're a "bench scientist"

You usually learn early on that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And if you don't, you wind up selling biological supplies for a living.

I agree. You are obviously an example. I never disparage your service or your commitment. I come at this from a different angle, law and politics. I know what I'm talking about in those spheres, although I am certainly no scholar on Iranian history and politics. All I'm asking for is an understanding that both perspectives are critical here. Regime change is not in the cards. The carrot and stick approach remains. Maybe now after a severe stick lashing it's time to think about what carrots we can dangle?

You mean the great American Greatness? What could be better? It regularly features the ancient ancient history scholar Victor Davis Hanson's musings on the American Greatness of Donald the Great.

⬆️ We have finally reached a place where the infamous (and infamously insane) "Greg"/Deranged Rhino is more reasonable than his pupil.

So why should Obama "move on?" Did Trump "move on" after being thumped by the likes of Joe Biden? Obama is unusually young for a guy who hasn't been President for 9 years. He is still interested in public policy. He could still serve as an advisor (officially or unofficially) to a future Democratic president. The argument seems to be "former Presidents usually do this." Former presidents are usually old, or (at least in the early post-Presidential years) quite unpopular. Obama is neither. You guys just hate having to deal with a guy who is obviously more popular than Trump hanging around and reminding us of that fact.