The Frankish Reich

While we live under the constant threat that Tulsi's and Kristi's Fox News Cougar makeovers may eventually cause them to merge into one person, for now they remain (somewhat) separate. Keep Elon out of this. Glenn has issues. I am offering help.

A big step back. 1970s. The common wisdom: the geographic coincidence that most of the world's usable oil is located under unstable monarchies in the Middle East forces the US to be involved in all kinds of otherwise local disputes that we'd rather not be part of. The dream: U.S. Energy Independence. That will free us from having to be involved in a region of ancient hatreds and poor governance. 2010s: the shale oil boom that had been anticipated since the 1970s finally becomes reality as fracking technology takes off. We are genuinely energy (at least oil/gas) independent! I guess we can disengage from these ancient disputes, right? That seems to be a big motivator for Trump voters, right? No. I guess not.

I suspect you're right. And I really hope you're right.

How this works on a very local level: We had a local golf course in Denver on kind of marginal land adjacent to I-70. The area started to gentrify. The people of Denver didn't want a big residential/commercial development there, so the City purchased a "perpetual conservation easement" from the owners for $2 million. The easement restricted the land to use as a public recreational amenity; basically, only a golf course fit the bill. The owners then said it wasn't viable as a golf course. They shut it down and let it become an eyesore. Developers lobbied ($$$) the City Council for a ballot proposition to eliminate the "conservation easement" so the land could be developed. Voters shot it down. By now it was pretty clear that the people simply didn't want more development there. The developers didn't give up. A developer bought the golf course (still subject to the conservation easement) for a bargain basement price of $24 million. If the easement was removed, it's easily worth 20 or more times that. And guess what? Another ballot proposition. This time they "greenwashed" it, claiming that an infill project would be good for the climate and for poorer Denverites who need more housing. The City Council ($$$) agreed. Get that zoning/easement changed and the developer has just made maybe $100 million through lobbying/rent-seeking behavior. It lost again. Finally the city gave up. You apparently can't bs your voters 3X. It'll now be some kind of public park. That's how the developers work. We need to sell marginal BLM/USFS land to ease the housing crunch. But that land can't be used for housing because it's too far away from population centers and/or has no water rights. Never mind. We'll fix that later through more lobbying ($$$), then we'll make real money.

Still can't unsee the mental image that conjured. BTW, his son is a DL recruit at WV. Keep your pants on, kid.

Yes. Because you are either incredibly naive or self-hating if you openly support a party pledged to undo recognition of your family as legitimate. So go ahead, plead with the OP to change the title of this thread to "Naive gay man proves naivete yet again."

I've not been a fan of Greenwald for a long time. I think he is incredibly naive in his view of the world. Championing Edward Snowden. Supporting Trumpism given all that comes with it (and yes, that includes backtracking on LGBT rights). And so now everyone sees that.

Funny how no one is singing Glenn Greenwald's praises now. Hint: he seems to think Trump was no intellectual match for Bibi's hypnotic skills of persuasion.

Agreed. And just because it's federal land doesn't mean it's undisturbed wilderness. The old joke is that BLM stands for Bureau of Livestock and Mining. And here in Colorado all major ski resorts are located on leased Forest Service land. Is the system rational? No. Is the taxpayer getting rents that reflect the true market value? No. Would it be better if we sold off the land to the highest bidder? In theory. But my experience with land use in the West is that the truth is there is no free/open market and that developer or mining interests always seem to win out and get a sweetheart deal. Add to that the scarcity of water and multiple claims for water rights and I don't think we're at a point where larger scale land sales would benefit the American people.

I second Ty Johnson. My other fave role player (it's too easy to name the starters): Alec Anderson. Just seems to have the killer flatten-whatever's-in-my-path run blocker instinct.

Fairly typical BLM land in Nevada.

A lot of it is far from "pristine." Most of it is not "developable" because it is far, far away from anywhere where people or business are likely to locate. I'm not against a sale of some of the land, but people have a legitimate concern that this is a foot in the door technique, and that somehow (I wonder how ...) big developer interests will wind up buying the land for far less than what they deem it to be worth after an intensive lobbying effort for water rights, road access, etc. No offense intended here, but sometimes I wonder exactly how much time these proponents of federal land sales have actually spent on western USFS and BLM lands ...

The real Vance Boelter: https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/on-the-christian-education-of-dr Boelter, we know, was a Trump supporter, but he was a student of the man who preached a violent-prayer-a-day, the founder of Boelter alma mater Christ for the Nations Institute, Gordon Lindsay. We can no more pin Boelter’s crimes on Lindsay than we can say he’s the “fruit” of Trumpism’s spirit of political violence; the criminal bears the true weight of his actions. But it’s worth a moment to trace some of the tributaries which feed into an assassin’s death dreams. Gordon Lindsay was born in 1906, in what was then called Zion City, Illinois (today just Zion). It had only recently been established as a “Christian utopia”—or, some said, a massive exercise in securities fraud perpetrated by faith healer John Alexander Dowie, of whom Lindsay’s father was a follower. As a young man, Lindsay would attribute to another faith healer his own recovering from “poisoning,” via exposure to this verse from the Book of Acts—seen here as depicted in a movie about Lindsay made by Christ for the Nations—sometimes taken by antisemites that Jews are “Christ-killers.” The Christ for the Nations film skips over the late 1930s and early 40s, during which Lindsay was involved with British Israelism, an antisemitic movement which maintained that Anglo-Saxons were the true Israelites, not the Jews. That movement was forerunner of the white supremacist Christian Identity movement. In 1940, Lindsay organized the “Anglo-Saxon World Federation Convention,” which was about what it sounds like.

They're not getting manipulated now. They are covering up the fact that all objective/verifiable information we have about this latest loser assassin shows that he was a religious right nut who'd come under the spell of Trumpy conspiracy peddlers. "Kill list" composed of all Democrats? Hah! That only shows the disinformation network at work. Attended crackpot phony religious university? Yeah, right, that's exactly the fake background they'd create for a lefty Manchurian candidate killer. I will grant you that the line between "embarrassed when one of their own takes their bs seriously and acts on it" and "legitimately believes any nonsense some fool spouts" is blurry these days.

Yet. What happens if Iran strikes U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq?

I am in the small minority who believes that Wilson has a second act in him. Leinert was probably the biggest surprise bust for me. I realize some analysts saw a limited upside, but I was sure he'd have at least a decent NFL career. Does it really come down to lack of intensity/will to succeed?

Yep. Too soon. The injury thing takes him out of the out-and-out bust category. Heath Shuler was one of those total busts too.

You're right - we have consistently seen presidents construe their war powers authorities broadly. In my career I've seen a huge shift here. In the early 90s (the time of the first Iraq war), one of my law profs was probably the leading hawkish war powers proponent. He characterized the post-Vietnam era as an age of "Congressional Supremacy" in which the unconstitutional War Powers Act restrained the President's clear constitutional authorities. But we've seen the pendulum swing - Serbia was one big one, then the never-ending congressional authorizations that let Bush 43 do all sorts of things far beyond the intended scope. I thought Trump and the neo-neoconservatives were trying to swing the pendulum back. I'm not sure it need to go back to 1975, but it does need to go back to at least the early 2000s when everyone understood that congressional authorization (even if not a declaration of war) was necessary for action against Iraq.

You are almost always going to overpay for the anticipated decline years in order to afford the anticipated 2-3 productive years. At this point with the Bills, you gotta do it.

Or see Afghanistan and Iraq. These were studied/contemplated/debated uses of U.S. military force against the ruling forces of sovereign nations. Say what you will about the results of the debate, but there were debates in Congress and an AUMF. I see no reason why - with the "two week pause" - that debate isn't happening now in Congress. This is not a situation involving an immediate defensive action against an attack on the United States or United States interests abroad, nor is it a military action compelled by Senate-ratified treaty obligations. The constitution is the constitution regardless of which party is in charge. Those were the Cold Warrior conservatives. The roles are reversed now. The post-neocon conservatives are supposed to be about appropriate debate and authorization before we get involved in foreign wars.

Constitutional conservatives: where's Congress? Where's the authorization for the use of military force in Iran? Isn't that, at a minimum, what's required before Trump launches any U.S. assault? If this is about regime change, isn't that essentially a declaration of war on Iran? Why no declaration?

You guys should go back and read the OP in this thread. Tulsi Gabbard is his hero. It appears that the Deep State has gotten to Trump and they've won. Again. I mean, if you're into this kind of conspiratorial thinking ....

She was a convenient "independent thinker" back then, a leading voice against U.S. involvement in forever wars. She is no longer convenient now that the next forever war is about to begin.

Wow, amazing that 57 year old loser weirdo left behind crazy-ass nutcase scribblings. Let's try to decipher them!