Have you seen McCarthy's brilliant first bill for the new Congress - dump the funding for the IRS? Well, heck, we can't go after the literally billions in uncollected taxes by his rich pals. And he wants to be another Newt Gingrich.
Because the Murdoch's want the US to fail. They hate the US, in spite of Rupert getting US citizenship in order to buy his own TV network. When you're super rich you are above the law, you can buy the means to turn millions of people into traitors and fascists.
You are above reproach, and you can buy everything you want.
Personally, I would be very supportive of a law requiring that American media companies be owned and operated by American citizens without dual citizenship in other nations. If you're going to get rich ruining a country's social fabric, it should at least be one you're fully invested in.
Judge Dearie, the evidence you asked for is: "..a lot of people are saying ______." and "...people are calling [Client Trump] saying ----------------."
the number of people who have sadly fallen out of windows is growing. I think Putin will have to be dealt with by his inner circle in a permanent way.
Sadly, 300,000 people less the ones that don't work out is still a lot of people to drop on Ukraine. It strikes me that the only thing that will really act as a deterrent is NATPO on the ground in Ukraine, The EU may be able to tolerate a cold winter but tolerating radioactivity from either a missile inan existing plant, or by conventional means is an entirely different beast. This is becoming more like Vietnam every day but with Nukes and chemicals.
I'm not a hawk at all but Ukraine is Russia's camel's nose under the tent watching and gauging world intentions. He needs to be dead.
If the Jan 6th committee can't make a criminal referral befor the mid terms, it will dissolve I suspect. We really do have two levels of law here and it's been exposed. One for wealthy dirtbags and one for people without the means to put up a defense.
Trump in Jail? Not at all likely. His handlers? far more likely. Treat him like we would Putin.
Okay, I'm not sure. Can/Does 1/6 committee have to do a referral? Looks like Garland and the DOJ are doing just fine. Though the stealing classified records and instigating a coup do seem to go together.
I’ll say it again…. Judge Dearie ROCKS! Now maybe we are going to get somewhere! Tick Tock TrUmP your reign as the supreme con man may be up sooner than you think. I see an orange jumpsuit to match the rest of you in your future! I’m an atheist but maybe there is a god.
And still they follow him? I am no longer trying to figure out why because it makes no sense to me. I have known people with serious drug dependency problems and ones who were followers of Jim Jones. There is little if any difference in the two examples ANF how TFGs people continue to ignore what he really is and continue to support and worship him..
With the Nasdaq below 11k, the DJIA below 30k, and the S&P 500 below the 3900 threshold, I just want to remind everyone here that Wall Street is always trying to sell you *something* that it is at best unsure about, especially when they use terms like "the interest rate hikes are baked into our market forecasts." I sold back in May when these fools couldn't see the writing on the walls yet and were taking their little bear market bounce for a ride over the summer thinking I was chicken little.
Now we're here and it's only going to get worse for the next 2-4 years. I'm buying boatloads of ONEQ index funds when the Nasdaq bottoms out around 9-9.5k next year (should put ONEQ prices around $30-35/share at bottom). Gonna be a wild ride folks. Market is gonna lose another good 10-15% over the next 8-12 months before this starts to turn back around.
Bonus: think about what this market plummet next year will do to the 2024 race, because the unemployment rate is the tail-end indicator that stops shifting last.
And it's not about where the market is at today, it is about where it will be 12-36 months from now. The shorter-term the forecast, the less likely it is to be true.
A colonel is not the level of military commentator you want. Those guys are retired are Generals and Lt. Generals who've actually commanded troops in Europe. Those of higher rank, who really know what's going on in Ukraine, simply won't go on Fox. If they do, they will become isolated amongst their peers because of Fox's pro-Putin propaganda. The ones you want are Hodges, Hertling, Petraeus, Clark and Stravidus. The problem for the network is they can't attract them due Fox's lies and hypocrisy.
The thing that needs to be realized first and foremost is that most of these generals/admirals... I would go so far as to say pretty much all of them... are politicians. This is true for pretty much every general in any contemporary large scale military.
The field of politics and details are different from electoral politics, but it political nonetheless.
There is also a lot of nepotism. Most of these people were somone's protege--and they now have proteges of their own. They got favorable assignments, better fitreps, so on. They played the game. Punched the right tickets (regardless of how well or poorly they performed in that spot). They got a spot at the right schools to get the right grad degree (usually international relations or some form of war studies--in the air force, sometimes it is a technical degree, depending upon the career path).
They stabbed the right backs at the right time in the right way and kissed the right ass at the right time in the right way. Just like any other politician or corp climber.
I probably am their equal in understanding of the theory of war and international relations because I have studied it at least as long as they have and from a more detached perspective. I have read my Jomini and Clausewtz and Sun Tzu and Luttwak (and others than non-specialists have never heard nor will ever hear of)
A lot of the "expertise" in war often breaks down into biased arguments used to justify ones job or the existence of particular methods/technologies. They don't really have a much better idea of what is coming or what will win the next war than Joe Blow on the street. History bears sufficient witness to this.
They also tend to forget things that aren't "sexy" or do not serve their political ends (like how to effectively fight an insurgency, a lesson that the US military has learned and forgot and re-learned multiple times or not bothered to learn in other times).
I don't have their administrative and political experience... but I also probably understand low level leadership as well or better than them as I was a senior NCO... and then a teacher for 26 years.
I have played wargames for decades (anyone here old enough and into it enough to remember Avalon Hill or SSI and Strategy & Tactics magazine?).
With access to the intel/info they had and have I could give as good analysis as they give... and it would be less politically correct.
They can speak to details better than I can based upon experience.
As Travis says, colonels will tend to have a better handle on the operational level and below and the nuts and bolts. Bn commanders even moreso.
My background is similar to yours and some of what you say is true. I will defer, however, to those who commanded troops in Europe and were up close to the Russian military. When these guys were there they visited with Russian Generals and saw the surface of their militaries up close. What they all missed was the effect of corruption and kleptocracy on Russian military equipment and preparedness. What they did know was the staggering number of personnel and munitions the Russians had. We talk about the will of the Ukrainians to defend their country, which is very true. But had the Russians committed the overwhelming force necessary to seize Kyiv and overthrow the Zelinski government this would not be the same war. Sure there is an element of political correctness, but that didn't stop Generals like Kelly and McMaster from being in the Trump administration. These Generals also retain contacts at the highest levels of the military and DoD.
As long as this may look, it's actually a pretty succinct description of something that's difficult to capture in the fewest words possible.
The generals spend about 2 years studying folks like Clausewitz and Jomini at the joint defense colleges (+Corbett & Mahan if they're Navy/USMC). I've spent my life since 21 reading the same shit (some 15 years). I have wayyyyy more time to figure out the pitfalls/pluses of their strategies in the context of history juxtaposed onto modern weaponry than they do, but then again, I'm not managing the operations that they are on a daily basis, so I have more time to understand this shit than they do at just 2 years.
This is what I mean about the institutes being built on faulty foundations.
There is a requirement for all Navy officers now to accomplish a Joint Professional Military Education program in order to be promoted to O-5 so some of this professional training occurs before they are Generals. It's a fantastic program that delves into the history of war and also is about the different services and their organizations and history.
*General* McCrystal in Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010: "We've got government-in-a-box ready to go here." How'd that work out for us Stanley? That fucking government-in-a-box didn't go so well now did it?
The generals are even worse than the colonels a lot of the time. At least colonels still have to keep the operational and tactical level *somewhere* in their mind. Generals are above the clouds and are post-political. Hertling and Stravidus are arguably the best of the bunch you cited, but even they have made giant strategic/operational fuckups in the past. The entire military officer corps is tainted by faux-meritocracy because bad promotion metrics are entrenched in the military's officer promotion system. Nobody changes it, and so even when you replace older generals who fucked up with newer ones you still get the same kinds of fuckups without accountability down the line because the system never changed. It's like if Putin dies tomorrow of a heart attack, you're still going to end up with a nationalistic oligarch in power because *that is the way the system works*. Garbage in = garbage out. Fixing the outputs doesn't do anything if you don't fix the inputs or the process that generates the outputs.
The best the generals have done for us over the last 20 years is show us what *doesn't* work as opposed to what does. They have shown us this through their personal failures as strategic-level decision-makers.
Maybe Amanda had a bad flight going to Texas for the Tribune Festival? Some of the live comments labeled her discussion "passionate." Others speculated she was drunk. She was voicing opinions when she was short on actual facts - calling the migrants "illegal" and arguing with JVL that "Perla" would not have been searching for a particular migrant status by viewing their papers - because "why would they do that?" I was glad to listen to Beg to Differ this morning as a mental palate cleanser.
Did things go haywire? Last time JVL had a TNB he didn't like, he never posted the podcast version, and I don't see one up for last night's as of yet. I don't even see the replay.
Intelligent people with strong opinions will disagree on occasion it’s not always pleasant to watch, but I will take the disagreement of folks like Will, JVL, and Amanda over the unanimity on display on other sources.
I was listening 20% to TNB while focusing 80% on completing work. I got the sense there was disagreement, and then JVL pulled the curtain down early before the final act. Reasonable people often disagree. That's fine. Give me more TNB and its substance. I'll always pass on Fox & Friends, Gutfeld!, etc.
The Murdochs, who were welcomed by us with open arms, have done more to divide our country than anyone. Their propaganda led directly to the election of Donald Trump. We would be a different and better country today had they never come.
And education is only going to get worse if they keep maligning teachers for things they don't even teach. Or as many on the Christian right are doing "homeschooling" or sending their kids to Bible school on the states dime.
Also, they are looking for the vindication and emotional outlet that comes with religion. The fact that Trump, et al are complete turnips is of no moment for the unthinking.
I've said it before, Trump is like one of those itinerate con men who went from drought ridden town after town telling people to pay him to make it rain.
Have you seen McCarthy's brilliant first bill for the new Congress - dump the funding for the IRS? Well, heck, we can't go after the literally billions in uncollected taxes by his rich pals. And he wants to be another Newt Gingrich.
Once again, you couldn’t have been more on topic. It’s good to see functioning adults in the room.
Because the Murdoch's want the US to fail. They hate the US, in spite of Rupert getting US citizenship in order to buy his own TV network. When you're super rich you are above the law, you can buy the means to turn millions of people into traitors and fascists.
You are above reproach, and you can buy everything you want.
Enjoy Austin everyone!
I agree with everything you said. Look at all the Ivy League-educated Maga-heads like De Santis, Hawley and Kennedy.
Personally, I would be very supportive of a law requiring that American media companies be owned and operated by American citizens without dual citizenship in other nations. If you're going to get rich ruining a country's social fabric, it should at least be one you're fully invested in.
Hey Charlie, I’m in Austin for a different event. Are you guys doing a meet up tonight?
Judge Dearie, the evidence you asked for is: "..a lot of people are saying ______." and "...people are calling [Client Trump] saying ----------------."
Also "and you know this better than anyone."
the number of people who have sadly fallen out of windows is growing. I think Putin will have to be dealt with by his inner circle in a permanent way.
Sadly, 300,000 people less the ones that don't work out is still a lot of people to drop on Ukraine. It strikes me that the only thing that will really act as a deterrent is NATPO on the ground in Ukraine, The EU may be able to tolerate a cold winter but tolerating radioactivity from either a missile inan existing plant, or by conventional means is an entirely different beast. This is becoming more like Vietnam every day but with Nukes and chemicals.
I'm not a hawk at all but Ukraine is Russia's camel's nose under the tent watching and gauging world intentions. He needs to be dead.
If the Jan 6th committee can't make a criminal referral befor the mid terms, it will dissolve I suspect. We really do have two levels of law here and it's been exposed. One for wealthy dirtbags and one for people without the means to put up a defense.
Trump in Jail? Not at all likely. His handlers? far more likely. Treat him like we would Putin.
Okay, I'm not sure. Can/Does 1/6 committee have to do a referral? Looks like Garland and the DOJ are doing just fine. Though the stealing classified records and instigating a coup do seem to go together.
Doesn't have to. It does need to just to legitimatize the work they did. Pass on all the evidence. Expect McCarthy to immediately try to dismiss it.
At least we all know where Hillary's emails are now.
I’ll say it again…. Judge Dearie ROCKS! Now maybe we are going to get somewhere! Tick Tock TrUmP your reign as the supreme con man may be up sooner than you think. I see an orange jumpsuit to match the rest of you in your future! I’m an atheist but maybe there is a god.
Merrick Garland's new theme song just dropped: https://youtu.be/XiXb-6j4R98
Either that or we can expect the Apocalypse sometime soon. :~)
And still they follow him? I am no longer trying to figure out why because it makes no sense to me. I have known people with serious drug dependency problems and ones who were followers of Jim Jones. There is little if any difference in the two examples ANF how TFGs people continue to ignore what he really is and continue to support and worship him..
With the Nasdaq below 11k, the DJIA below 30k, and the S&P 500 below the 3900 threshold, I just want to remind everyone here that Wall Street is always trying to sell you *something* that it is at best unsure about, especially when they use terms like "the interest rate hikes are baked into our market forecasts." I sold back in May when these fools couldn't see the writing on the walls yet and were taking their little bear market bounce for a ride over the summer thinking I was chicken little.
Now we're here and it's only going to get worse for the next 2-4 years. I'm buying boatloads of ONEQ index funds when the Nasdaq bottoms out around 9-9.5k next year (should put ONEQ prices around $30-35/share at bottom). Gonna be a wild ride folks. Market is gonna lose another good 10-15% over the next 8-12 months before this starts to turn back around.
Bonus: think about what this market plummet next year will do to the 2024 race, because the unemployment rate is the tail-end indicator that stops shifting last.
I'm not as bearish as you are, but if I could see the future I'd be at the racetrack instead of hanging around here.
Yet stocks are down big time again today. This does not bode well for the midterms.
And it's not about where the market is at today, it is about where it will be 12-36 months from now. The shorter-term the forecast, the less likely it is to be true.
If I were interested in being rich I woulda went to college for finance at 18 instead of the USMC recruiting office.
I continue to make poor life decisions to this day! (hence my being here instead of the racetrack).
You and me both. :)
A colonel is not the level of military commentator you want. Those guys are retired are Generals and Lt. Generals who've actually commanded troops in Europe. Those of higher rank, who really know what's going on in Ukraine, simply won't go on Fox. If they do, they will become isolated amongst their peers because of Fox's pro-Putin propaganda. The ones you want are Hodges, Hertling, Petraeus, Clark and Stravidus. The problem for the network is they can't attract them due Fox's lies and hypocrisy.
The thing that needs to be realized first and foremost is that most of these generals/admirals... I would go so far as to say pretty much all of them... are politicians. This is true for pretty much every general in any contemporary large scale military.
The field of politics and details are different from electoral politics, but it political nonetheless.
There is also a lot of nepotism. Most of these people were somone's protege--and they now have proteges of their own. They got favorable assignments, better fitreps, so on. They played the game. Punched the right tickets (regardless of how well or poorly they performed in that spot). They got a spot at the right schools to get the right grad degree (usually international relations or some form of war studies--in the air force, sometimes it is a technical degree, depending upon the career path).
They stabbed the right backs at the right time in the right way and kissed the right ass at the right time in the right way. Just like any other politician or corp climber.
I probably am their equal in understanding of the theory of war and international relations because I have studied it at least as long as they have and from a more detached perspective. I have read my Jomini and Clausewtz and Sun Tzu and Luttwak (and others than non-specialists have never heard nor will ever hear of)
A lot of the "expertise" in war often breaks down into biased arguments used to justify ones job or the existence of particular methods/technologies. They don't really have a much better idea of what is coming or what will win the next war than Joe Blow on the street. History bears sufficient witness to this.
They also tend to forget things that aren't "sexy" or do not serve their political ends (like how to effectively fight an insurgency, a lesson that the US military has learned and forgot and re-learned multiple times or not bothered to learn in other times).
I don't have their administrative and political experience... but I also probably understand low level leadership as well or better than them as I was a senior NCO... and then a teacher for 26 years.
I have played wargames for decades (anyone here old enough and into it enough to remember Avalon Hill or SSI and Strategy & Tactics magazine?).
With access to the intel/info they had and have I could give as good analysis as they give... and it would be less politically correct.
They can speak to details better than I can based upon experience.
As Travis says, colonels will tend to have a better handle on the operational level and below and the nuts and bolts. Bn commanders even moreso.
My background is similar to yours and some of what you say is true. I will defer, however, to those who commanded troops in Europe and were up close to the Russian military. When these guys were there they visited with Russian Generals and saw the surface of their militaries up close. What they all missed was the effect of corruption and kleptocracy on Russian military equipment and preparedness. What they did know was the staggering number of personnel and munitions the Russians had. We talk about the will of the Ukrainians to defend their country, which is very true. But had the Russians committed the overwhelming force necessary to seize Kyiv and overthrow the Zelinski government this would not be the same war. Sure there is an element of political correctness, but that didn't stop Generals like Kelly and McMaster from being in the Trump administration. These Generals also retain contacts at the highest levels of the military and DoD.
As long as this may look, it's actually a pretty succinct description of something that's difficult to capture in the fewest words possible.
The generals spend about 2 years studying folks like Clausewitz and Jomini at the joint defense colleges (+Corbett & Mahan if they're Navy/USMC). I've spent my life since 21 reading the same shit (some 15 years). I have wayyyyy more time to figure out the pitfalls/pluses of their strategies in the context of history juxtaposed onto modern weaponry than they do, but then again, I'm not managing the operations that they are on a daily basis, so I have more time to understand this shit than they do at just 2 years.
This is what I mean about the institutes being built on faulty foundations.
There is a requirement for all Navy officers now to accomplish a Joint Professional Military Education program in order to be promoted to O-5 so some of this professional training occurs before they are Generals. It's a fantastic program that delves into the history of war and also is about the different services and their organizations and history.
Travis...nah...never mind...
*General* McCrystal in Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010: "We've got government-in-a-box ready to go here." How'd that work out for us Stanley? That fucking government-in-a-box didn't go so well now did it?
The generals are even worse than the colonels a lot of the time. At least colonels still have to keep the operational and tactical level *somewhere* in their mind. Generals are above the clouds and are post-political. Hertling and Stravidus are arguably the best of the bunch you cited, but even they have made giant strategic/operational fuckups in the past. The entire military officer corps is tainted by faux-meritocracy because bad promotion metrics are entrenched in the military's officer promotion system. Nobody changes it, and so even when you replace older generals who fucked up with newer ones you still get the same kinds of fuckups without accountability down the line because the system never changed. It's like if Putin dies tomorrow of a heart attack, you're still going to end up with a nationalistic oligarch in power because *that is the way the system works*. Garbage in = garbage out. Fixing the outputs doesn't do anything if you don't fix the inputs or the process that generates the outputs.
The best the generals have done for us over the last 20 years is show us what *doesn't* work as opposed to what does. They have shown us this through their personal failures as strategic-level decision-makers.
So...how 'bout that livestream last night, eh?
I'm disappointed that it is apparently not going to be made available. I would like to see what the disagreement was about.
Nevertheless I hope they can patch things up. I really enjoy TNB. Maybe they should bring Charlie and Bill back to keep things calmed down.
Maybe Amanda had a bad flight going to Texas for the Tribune Festival? Some of the live comments labeled her discussion "passionate." Others speculated she was drunk. She was voicing opinions when she was short on actual facts - calling the migrants "illegal" and arguing with JVL that "Perla" would not have been searching for a particular migrant status by viewing their papers - because "why would they do that?" I was glad to listen to Beg to Differ this morning as a mental palate cleanser.
Did things go haywire? Last time JVL had a TNB he didn't like, he never posted the podcast version, and I don't see one up for last night's as of yet. I don't even see the replay.
As the GOP said on Jan 7: It’s over. Move along.
Intelligent people with strong opinions will disagree on occasion it’s not always pleasant to watch, but I will take the disagreement of folks like Will, JVL, and Amanda over the unanimity on display on other sources.
I was listening 20% to TNB while focusing 80% on completing work. I got the sense there was disagreement, and then JVL pulled the curtain down early before the final act. Reasonable people often disagree. That's fine. Give me more TNB and its substance. I'll always pass on Fox & Friends, Gutfeld!, etc.
Worst ever.
It was....different. The Bulwark is like a family, and last night was a Thanksgiving dinner discussion.
The Murdochs, who were welcomed by us with open arms, have done more to divide our country than anyone. Their propaganda led directly to the election of Donald Trump. We would be a different and better country today had they never come.
And education is only going to get worse if they keep maligning teachers for things they don't even teach. Or as many on the Christian right are doing "homeschooling" or sending their kids to Bible school on the states dime.
It's not education or the lack thereof. Plenty of educated people believe incredibly stupid things or pretend to believe those things.
Because they actually want to, because there is power and money there.
Also, they are looking for the vindication and emotional outlet that comes with religion. The fact that Trump, et al are complete turnips is of no moment for the unthinking.
I think it's both, but you are absolutely right about the educated, lying hypocrites as well.
It is amazing. Let's let teachers implement educational criteria and parent organizations focus on bus schedules, clothing and scheduling.
I've said it before, Trump is like one of those itinerate con men who went from drought ridden town after town telling people to pay him to make it rain.