We import board/card games, and were told this morning that shipping costs from China could double, because "China's largest oil trading partner is Iran, and therefore due to the Iranian fuel supply chain uncertainty, rates will be increasing." This is obviously going to further hurt businesses and the economy.
$ 3.30 per gallon is dirt cheap! That’s less than half the price in many European countries. What I do question is the size of many American vehicles – and the legions of pickup truck drivers who rarely use their trucks to haul stuff.
yeah but i miss my pickups...drove them for 30 years; never had funky smells in the car from fish, spilled milk, gas from snow blowers and lawn mowers....benn battling a funky smell in my traverse for 3 weeks, possibly from a snowblower that thawed out in the back....and i could leave my fishing gear in the covered bed all the time, now i have to take it all out each time; the benefit is no one is asking me to move a bed or fridge for them anymore. dirty secret; chrysler minivans move a lot more stuff more easily; just drop the seats into the floor.....but we don't advertise it....
Yeah, I used to love driving trucks. Small, sane-sized ones - Ford 100s or earlier. Handy for lots of things. In the parking lot of a market I go to there is ALWAYS what must be a store employee's monster truck. It is HUGE. The cab seems to be about 7' high. Enormous tires, etc. Ridiculous. My driving days are long gone - I'm old, have sketchy vision, and getting shorter by the day. Still miss my useful little trucks.
All well and good - enjoy your truck - where there is space for it. NOT at the Jersey Shore where I live. Small towns, small streets, no parking space, large trucks speeding through, tourists unfamiliar with the area, plenty of pedestrians. You get the picture.
Yes, I definitely do. Was just reminiscing about "the olden days." Now traffic EVERYWHERE is pretty horrible and I've become the world's worst passenger. Just ask my kids!
In the mid South-TN, not sure about the rest of the country, but in summertime price always increases due to summer blend of gas which allegedly costs more to produce, and now the war will the cause more rise in prices!! Book trips ASAP if you're flying anywhere!
Trump is running the country just like he ran the Apprentice. King Donald surrounding himself with D (or F) level sycophants fighting for his approval. It can be no surprise with this level of insanity and incompetence we are spiraling down in every way and now dragging the world with us. Republicans in Congress are completely compliant along with a near compliant Supreme Court. It is just maddening, all we can do is pressure and put in the work for the midterms. He is so out of control now that if not stopped, America risks being ruled by a minority of white nationalist fascists for decades. Look at all the countries where autocrats fully seize control, it lasts for 50+ years. We are at break the glass time for our country and our children.
I am utterly perplexed that Republicans have somehow earned the reputation for being “good for the economy.” The actual data never seems to support this.
Same! I ran into a log cabin Republican once at a Pride event (his tee shirt said so) and I asked him why. He said he cared about fiscal responsibility. I just stared at him and finally said I hoped he had a fun day.
My guess is that Republicans are used to that narrative and not at all used to fact checking.
My mother, an Iowa farm girl and lifelong Republican, seemed to believe that “TaxAndSpendDemocrats” was all one word. I do not recall her ever uttering the word, Democrats, without including her prefix.
In honor of my mother and all those like her who’ve been caught up in the lie that Republicans are the ones who know how to run the economy, I’ve been trying to imagine a concise explanation for data such as the graph of average monthly job growth in Republican vs Democratic administrations; I would welcome feedback.
Is it fitting, for example, to explain the average yearly job growth (2,530,000 jobs per year under Democratic presidents vs. 90,000 jobs per year under Republican presidents) by saying:
“In a nutshell, Republican administrations from 1989-2026 have emphasized cutting taxes for the wealthy on the premise that the wealthy will plow their tax savings back into expansion of their businesses, a premise that has not come to fruition because the wealthy have instead often chosen to direct these savings towards personal self-enrichment. Meanwhile, Democratic administrations have promoted diverse pro-worker, pro-family policies by helping more people to have more money to spend (thanks to the social safety net, increased regulation against unfair financial practices, etc.), while supporting more government- and service-sector jobs in communities. These monetary inputs in turn stimulate further job growth in the private sector as average citizens have greater buying power. Taken together, the range of Democratic policies have led to the creation of 28-fold more jobs per year on average compared to Republican administrations in the last 35 years even while the Republicans falsely argue that ‘tax and spend’ policies of the Democrats drag down the economy.”
If Republicans are the ones creating jobs, why does Wall Street reward firing people?
Trickle-down economics doesn’t work because Republicans made sure their cup didn’t leak. (I stole that from J Zachary Pike’s amazing Orconomics trilogy.)
A rising economic tide lifts all boats. It isn’t zero-sum.
Republicans acquiring too much wealth has become a dangerous pathology.
Billionaires aren’t content to have almost all of the pie. They cry like babies when anyone else gleans a crumb off the floor.
Marcie - I grew up in Iowa and have heard so many people use that phrase too. Despite the inaccuracy, I'd much rather the government spent money to help people in need rather than spending money on billionaires and wars. They're constantly on the wrong side of issues!
When Tim Pawlenty was trying to make himself into a presidential candidate and starved the state, Democrats began referring to themselves as “tax and plow” Democrats. It was very effective.
i have come to believe the idea that republicans are better at the economy is just more racist dogwhistle; dems want to spend money on the other people. r's don't ergo they are better on the economy.
I think it is in part because they just keep saying that they are. Being pro major corporation is not the same as being good for the economy. Maybe the opposite.
Our leaders need to just state that we are better, don't back down, and say it every chance you get. We are especially better for small to medium businesses, and the economy overall.
That bar graph of job creation under different presidents that Simon shows us periodically should be front page news on every major paper.
Perhaps Dems could run some major marketing campaign cover the internet/social media sphere with it. That information needs to get to Trump's dwindling supporters as well as the entire country. Particularly in the next few weeks when prices and misery will spike.
Right in the middle of primary season, that graph should be death to the GOP if it could just smother the "airwaves."
Since 1869, anytime there was a Republican trifecta (the presidency and both houses of Congress), there was either a recession or a depression. Why the Democrats don't use this information when campaigning is beyond me!
I am genuinely baffled that there aren't more calls for Trump to leave or be removed from office in mainstream discourse.
In any other serious democracy (and probably any other era in America) he would have been absolutely savaged by the media and be in an untenable position, but this bunch seem more desperate to prop him up than to hold him accountable. The mind boggles.
Thank god for the ever growing power of independent media and people like Simon et al.
Well, for one thing: there have been some catastrophic media ownership changes in recent years. Additional ones during Trump’s tenure – and more really bad ones to come.
Thomas - remember when Gary Hart had to leave the race because of that one photograph of him on the boat with young women? I was mad that he was forced out for something so un-disqualifying, and now we have these vile monsters running our government. That's in one generation of changing attitudes. Unbelievable.
It still makes me crazy to think about it. And then Obama undid all the good work Dean had done on the “50 state strategy” and we still haven’t repaired that destruction.
Maybe pick one or two issues from the great list of goals and objectives in Simon’s post today. Pushing for a funding bill for Ukraine, e.g. or reminding them to not let up on ICE restrictions in any DHS appropriations vote
It's right here in Hopium Chronicles. "This week our calls should clearly focus on reining in both the illegal war in the Middle East and ICE here at home." — Simon
A piece of good news that happened three weeks ago--apologies if everyone already knows this, but I learned about it only today, so thought maybe others might not know it either. The Trump Administration Of Injustice tried its extortion routine on UCLA (you violated civil rights, all your grants are cancelled, give us $1 billion in protection money and we'll consider reinstating them), and got its *ss handed to it so badly in court that it's not even trying to appeal (lest the ruling apply everywhere, I'm assuming--notably this happened *before* the tariff decision, on Valentine's Day, appropriately--a card from God to the people of the USA, perhaps)
Further evidence that “when we fight we win”. My sister who lives in west TX sent me word this morning that they’ve dropped their ridiculous plan to put the border wall through Big Bend NP.
If you haven't already seen it, James Talarico's appearance on the Ezra Klein show earlier this year is a great complement to his kickoff speech that Simon shared yesterday and the interview he did with Simon earlier (and yet somehow none of them include one of my favorite retorts he's given; when asked who he wanted to win the GOP runoff, i.e. (paraphrasing) "I don't care; running against either one is the same--they're both corrupt, the only difference is that one of them's corruption is legalized."
Not only does the Strait of Hormuz being shut down stop oil, it also stops liquid natural gas and liquid fertilizer which is processed in the region with natural gas. It might not be immediate, but if prolonged this will also mean higher food prices, and probably malnutrition and starvation in various parts of the world. So over some period of time, this will hit supermarkets as well as gas stations unless it ends soon.
My understanding is that once a LNG plant shuts down, it takes four weeks to ramp the facility back up to full production. The first two weeks are particularly slow.
If Russia helping Iran isn’t bad enough, Hungary is getting into the act. Trump is gonna get his first dose of ‘dictator-friend’ betrayal. Bet UAE and Dubai are nearing regret for dealing with the devil. Did Kushner factor that in? And…squirrel… let’s topple Cuba!Unreal.
The people he's surrounded himself with have no depth of knowledge or experience in the world do they? That become so embarrassingly obvious at times like this.
True, but each one of them, including all the oligarchs, have a great depth of experience in doing underhanded deals to profit personally at any cost to country or individual! The Kings of Quid Pro Quo 👹
Russia is aiding Iran in targeting US assets, including soldiers. This should be screaming from the headlines of every news outlet. Time to massively increase our support of Ukraine.
How ironic Ukraine has the most battle experience in deterring Russia. Zelenskyy is in the catbird seat. Waiting to see taco grovel … he’ll be sending ‘sink into the couch’ Marco soon.
Yeah, Trump’s best buddy Vlad Putin ain’t playing nice! Who woulda thunk??
Given its considerable wartime experience, and domestic development of anti-rocket and anti-drone defense systems, it is worth noting that Ukraine is offering assistance to the Gulf countries.
"Four Democrats in The House voted against War Powers Act!!! But for them, it would have passed the House. 2 GOP voted for it. Final tally was 219-212.
The four who ended up voting against the measure are: Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Juan Vargas (D-Calif.).
Henry Cuellar of Tx won his primary in TX Tuesday, and Golden isn't seeking re-election, butLandsman and Vargas can still be primaried. Send a message, boot 'em out!!!"
~
Yes, the Senate had already voted down the war powers act, but if the House had passed it, this would have been an important step forward. Subtract 4 from the nays and add 4 to the yeas and the tally would have passed 216-215 even without the two republicans who joined the yeas.
What possible rationale could any democrat have for not seizing back article 1 power to declare war?
Here is Brian Tyler Cohen interviewing Ro Khanna. I have it cued up to 5:18 mark where they discuss the War Powers Vote. It's a good perspective. Khanna says it's not over, its just getting started, and the first big fight will be over no new appropriations to continue the war.
A historical parallel that came to mind when Trump was asked about the danger of running out of ammo, and he replied, "we can fight forever with the current supply," was the Battle of the Bulge. Both Trump and Hitler were under existential threat, both, I believe it will turn out, were pumped full of medication, and both undertook a huge gamble based on delusional assumptions.
In Hitler's case, he believed that a front causing heavy fog, snow, and low clouds would last long enough for his troops to get through the Ardennes Forest and continue all the way to the Belgian port city of Antwerp without having to deal with our air supremacy, dividing the US and British troops, which, he believed, would cause the Allies to sue for peace. The weather actually remained bad longer than he thought he needed, but what he thought he needed was, itself, not something anyone rational would have counted on, and in any case, was not long enough. On Christmas Day (fittingly), the skies cleared and our bombers were able to decimate his army a la the road between Kuwait City and Baghdad.
Here the gamble is that we can wipe out all of Iran's missiles and drones before we run out of defensive interceptors. May God protect our troops from this fate, and while He/She/They is/are at it, may the combination of Ukrainian aid in protecting our patriots and the Russian treachery Simon described this morning *finally* **force** Trump, whether he wants to or not, to come down decisively on the right side of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (as opposed to the Russia-Ukraine War, as the bothsiderist corporate media has called it since Day One).
The key to slowing up the German attack was that US Army soldiers fought like hell to hold the key town of Bastogne. (The battling bastards of Bastogne.) This was a major transportation hub in the region. Also the fact that Patton was able to disengage and pivot the Third Army to relieve and reenforce Bastogne was huge.
In the Perfect Timing department, as the Russian duplicity Simon describes is revealed, Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor yesterday to recap what Simon has been telling us for weeks is a huge story nobody is talking about enough, effectively tying Russian conduct to exactly what Trump may have been trying to avoid by starting this war: the Epstein files, in particular what they reveal about Trump, Epstein, and Russia:
Daily calls are in to WI members of Congress. 1st set to Republican members with a general statement about my disgust with the complicity. 2nd calls to all members regarding our multi faceted agenda. Talking to the Republican members is like talking to a brick wall but I’ll keep calling…
We import board/card games, and were told this morning that shipping costs from China could double, because "China's largest oil trading partner is Iran, and therefore due to the Iranian fuel supply chain uncertainty, rates will be increasing." This is obviously going to further hurt businesses and the economy.
Good luck, that is a huge obstacle!
Thank you! It will affect all of us due to increased prices.
The American people will be most directly effected to the large increase in the price of gasoline. The average price of gasoline is now $3.30.
$4.89 in N. California and rising. It will easily go up .30 by Tuesday.
$ 3.30 per gallon is dirt cheap! That’s less than half the price in many European countries. What I do question is the size of many American vehicles – and the legions of pickup truck drivers who rarely use their trucks to haul stuff.
do NOT get me started at the number of pickups in NJ, where we have way too many cars and not enough public transit.
yeah but i miss my pickups...drove them for 30 years; never had funky smells in the car from fish, spilled milk, gas from snow blowers and lawn mowers....benn battling a funky smell in my traverse for 3 weeks, possibly from a snowblower that thawed out in the back....and i could leave my fishing gear in the covered bed all the time, now i have to take it all out each time; the benefit is no one is asking me to move a bed or fridge for them anymore. dirty secret; chrysler minivans move a lot more stuff more easily; just drop the seats into the floor.....but we don't advertise it....
Yeah, I used to love driving trucks. Small, sane-sized ones - Ford 100s or earlier. Handy for lots of things. In the parking lot of a market I go to there is ALWAYS what must be a store employee's monster truck. It is HUGE. The cab seems to be about 7' high. Enormous tires, etc. Ridiculous. My driving days are long gone - I'm old, have sketchy vision, and getting shorter by the day. Still miss my useful little trucks.
All well and good - enjoy your truck - where there is space for it. NOT at the Jersey Shore where I live. Small towns, small streets, no parking space, large trucks speeding through, tourists unfamiliar with the area, plenty of pedestrians. You get the picture.
Yes, I definitely do. Was just reminiscing about "the olden days." Now traffic EVERYWHERE is pretty horrible and I've become the world's worst passenger. Just ask my kids!
In the mid South-TN, not sure about the rest of the country, but in summertime price always increases due to summer blend of gas which allegedly costs more to produce, and now the war will the cause more rise in prices!! Book trips ASAP if you're flying anywhere!
Trump is running the country just like he ran the Apprentice. King Donald surrounding himself with D (or F) level sycophants fighting for his approval. It can be no surprise with this level of insanity and incompetence we are spiraling down in every way and now dragging the world with us. Republicans in Congress are completely compliant along with a near compliant Supreme Court. It is just maddening, all we can do is pressure and put in the work for the midterms. He is so out of control now that if not stopped, America risks being ruled by a minority of white nationalist fascists for decades. Look at all the countries where autocrats fully seize control, it lasts for 50+ years. We are at break the glass time for our country and our children.
This is exactly right. Soon, our only GDP growth will be in the Trump Fluffer sector.
I think we will stop him, and the white nationalists, but we shouldn't stop fighting.
I just paid $5 a gallon for gasoline for my car! I expect it soon will be $10 a gallon.
Ford might want to see if they can dig out some old designs for sedans.
Yup, it's way expensive here in western WA, too. Approaching $5 yesterday, probably more today.
I am utterly perplexed that Republicans have somehow earned the reputation for being “good for the economy.” The actual data never seems to support this.
Same! I ran into a log cabin Republican once at a Pride event (his tee shirt said so) and I asked him why. He said he cared about fiscal responsibility. I just stared at him and finally said I hoped he had a fun day.
My guess is that Republicans are used to that narrative and not at all used to fact checking.
bingo
My mother, an Iowa farm girl and lifelong Republican, seemed to believe that “TaxAndSpendDemocrats” was all one word. I do not recall her ever uttering the word, Democrats, without including her prefix.
In honor of my mother and all those like her who’ve been caught up in the lie that Republicans are the ones who know how to run the economy, I’ve been trying to imagine a concise explanation for data such as the graph of average monthly job growth in Republican vs Democratic administrations; I would welcome feedback.
Is it fitting, for example, to explain the average yearly job growth (2,530,000 jobs per year under Democratic presidents vs. 90,000 jobs per year under Republican presidents) by saying:
“In a nutshell, Republican administrations from 1989-2026 have emphasized cutting taxes for the wealthy on the premise that the wealthy will plow their tax savings back into expansion of their businesses, a premise that has not come to fruition because the wealthy have instead often chosen to direct these savings towards personal self-enrichment. Meanwhile, Democratic administrations have promoted diverse pro-worker, pro-family policies by helping more people to have more money to spend (thanks to the social safety net, increased regulation against unfair financial practices, etc.), while supporting more government- and service-sector jobs in communities. These monetary inputs in turn stimulate further job growth in the private sector as average citizens have greater buying power. Taken together, the range of Democratic policies have led to the creation of 28-fold more jobs per year on average compared to Republican administrations in the last 35 years even while the Republicans falsely argue that ‘tax and spend’ policies of the Democrats drag down the economy.”
I have been thinking about that, too.
If Republicans are the ones creating jobs, why does Wall Street reward firing people?
Trickle-down economics doesn’t work because Republicans made sure their cup didn’t leak. (I stole that from J Zachary Pike’s amazing Orconomics trilogy.)
A rising economic tide lifts all boats. It isn’t zero-sum.
Republicans acquiring too much wealth has become a dangerous pathology.
Billionaires aren’t content to have almost all of the pie. They cry like babies when anyone else gleans a crumb off the floor.
Marcie - I grew up in Iowa and have heard so many people use that phrase too. Despite the inaccuracy, I'd much rather the government spent money to help people in need rather than spending money on billionaires and wars. They're constantly on the wrong side of issues!
When Tim Pawlenty was trying to make himself into a presidential candidate and starved the state, Democrats began referring to themselves as “tax and plow” Democrats. It was very effective.
i have come to believe the idea that republicans are better at the economy is just more racist dogwhistle; dems want to spend money on the other people. r's don't ergo they are better on the economy.
"Tax and spend" is better than "borrow and spend," which is all GOP does.
I think it is in part because they just keep saying that they are. Being pro major corporation is not the same as being good for the economy. Maybe the opposite.
Our leaders need to just state that we are better, don't back down, and say it every chance you get. We are especially better for small to medium businesses, and the economy overall.
That bar graph of job creation under different presidents that Simon shows us periodically should be front page news on every major paper.
Perhaps Dems could run some major marketing campaign cover the internet/social media sphere with it. That information needs to get to Trump's dwindling supporters as well as the entire country. Particularly in the next few weeks when prices and misery will spike.
Right in the middle of primary season, that graph should be death to the GOP if it could just smother the "airwaves."
We need to make sure we target the people running for office who have enabled this. But yeah.
Good for their personal economy is the correct translation.
Equaled only by their reputation as the party of 'law and order', and of 'national security'.
Since 1869, anytime there was a Republican trifecta (the presidency and both houses of Congress), there was either a recession or a depression. Why the Democrats don't use this information when campaigning is beyond me!
I am genuinely baffled that there aren't more calls for Trump to leave or be removed from office in mainstream discourse.
In any other serious democracy (and probably any other era in America) he would have been absolutely savaged by the media and be in an untenable position, but this bunch seem more desperate to prop him up than to hold him accountable. The mind boggles.
Thank god for the ever growing power of independent media and people like Simon et al.
Well, for one thing: there have been some catastrophic media ownership changes in recent years. Additional ones during Trump’s tenure – and more really bad ones to come.
Thomas - remember when Gary Hart had to leave the race because of that one photograph of him on the boat with young women? I was mad that he was forced out for something so un-disqualifying, and now we have these vile monsters running our government. That's in one generation of changing attitudes. Unbelievable.
What about the 'Dean scream'!!
Can you imagine in 2026 being deemed unfit to hold office, because you shouted one word too loud at the end of a speech.
It still makes me crazy to think about it. And then Obama undid all the good work Dean had done on the “50 state strategy” and we still haven’t repaired that destruction.
They are too scared of PINO's base.
MSM has boiled/steamed the frog for more than a decade. It's now vaporized and unrecognizable to the public.
What votes are coming up in congress? What should we be asking out Senators for right now?
Maybe pick one or two issues from the great list of goals and objectives in Simon’s post today. Pushing for a funding bill for Ukraine, e.g. or reminding them to not let up on ICE restrictions in any DHS appropriations vote
It's right here in Hopium Chronicles. "This week our calls should clearly focus on reining in both the illegal war in the Middle East and ICE here at home." — Simon
A piece of good news that happened three weeks ago--apologies if everyone already knows this, but I learned about it only today, so thought maybe others might not know it either. The Trump Administration Of Injustice tried its extortion routine on UCLA (you violated civil rights, all your grants are cancelled, give us $1 billion in protection money and we'll consider reinstating them), and got its *ss handed to it so badly in court that it's not even trying to appeal (lest the ruling apply everywhere, I'm assuming--notably this happened *before* the tariff decision, on Valentine's Day, appropriately--a card from God to the people of the USA, perhaps)
https://www.legalish.me/trump-drops-ucla-settlement-appeal/
Further evidence that “when we fight we win”. My sister who lives in west TX sent me word this morning that they’ve dropped their ridiculous plan to put the border wall through Big Bend NP.
BeeLee is correct. You have to stand up to bullies.
If you haven't already seen it, James Talarico's appearance on the Ezra Klein show earlier this year is a great complement to his kickoff speech that Simon shared yesterday and the interview he did with Simon earlier (and yet somehow none of them include one of my favorite retorts he's given; when asked who he wanted to win the GOP runoff, i.e. (paraphrasing) "I don't care; running against either one is the same--they're both corrupt, the only difference is that one of them's corruption is legalized."
https://youtu.be/sa6fiO2EgJ4?si=bw2pTik7VeJHza1u
I look forward to watching this – after the kickoff speech. Thanks for the link!
Not only does the Strait of Hormuz being shut down stop oil, it also stops liquid natural gas and liquid fertilizer which is processed in the region with natural gas. It might not be immediate, but if prolonged this will also mean higher food prices, and probably malnutrition and starvation in various parts of the world. So over some period of time, this will hit supermarkets as well as gas stations unless it ends soon.
My understanding is that once a LNG plant shuts down, it takes four weeks to ramp the facility back up to full production. The first two weeks are particularly slow.
They also use the LNG to make fertilizer there
If Russia helping Iran isn’t bad enough, Hungary is getting into the act. Trump is gonna get his first dose of ‘dictator-friend’ betrayal. Bet UAE and Dubai are nearing regret for dealing with the devil. Did Kushner factor that in? And…squirrel… let’s topple Cuba!Unreal.
The people he's surrounded himself with have no depth of knowledge or experience in the world do they? That become so embarrassingly obvious at times like this.
True, but each one of them, including all the oligarchs, have a great depth of experience in doing underhanded deals to profit personally at any cost to country or individual! The Kings of Quid Pro Quo 👹
Russia is aiding Iran in targeting US assets, including soldiers. This should be screaming from the headlines of every news outlet. Time to massively increase our support of Ukraine.
How ironic Ukraine has the most battle experience in deterring Russia. Zelenskyy is in the catbird seat. Waiting to see taco grovel … he’ll be sending ‘sink into the couch’ Marco soon.
Ah, I remember Marco drinkwater.
Yeah, Trump’s best buddy Vlad Putin ain’t playing nice! Who woulda thunk??
Given its considerable wartime experience, and domestic development of anti-rocket and anti-drone defense systems, it is worth noting that Ukraine is offering assistance to the Gulf countries.
reposting from yesterday
"Four Democrats in The House voted against War Powers Act!!! But for them, it would have passed the House. 2 GOP voted for it. Final tally was 219-212.
The four who ended up voting against the measure are: Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Juan Vargas (D-Calif.).
Henry Cuellar of Tx won his primary in TX Tuesday, and Golden isn't seeking re-election, butLandsman and Vargas can still be primaried. Send a message, boot 'em out!!!"
~
Yes, the Senate had already voted down the war powers act, but if the House had passed it, this would have been an important step forward. Subtract 4 from the nays and add 4 to the yeas and the tally would have passed 216-215 even without the two republicans who joined the yeas.
What possible rationale could any democrat have for not seizing back article 1 power to declare war?
Here is Brian Tyler Cohen interviewing Ro Khanna. I have it cued up to 5:18 mark where they discuss the War Powers Vote. It's a good perspective. Khanna says it's not over, its just getting started, and the first big fight will be over no new appropriations to continue the war.
https://youtu.be/0wzVcUIbWYs?si=X4TzSCNqhzSVEcPX&t=318
A historical parallel that came to mind when Trump was asked about the danger of running out of ammo, and he replied, "we can fight forever with the current supply," was the Battle of the Bulge. Both Trump and Hitler were under existential threat, both, I believe it will turn out, were pumped full of medication, and both undertook a huge gamble based on delusional assumptions.
In Hitler's case, he believed that a front causing heavy fog, snow, and low clouds would last long enough for his troops to get through the Ardennes Forest and continue all the way to the Belgian port city of Antwerp without having to deal with our air supremacy, dividing the US and British troops, which, he believed, would cause the Allies to sue for peace. The weather actually remained bad longer than he thought he needed, but what he thought he needed was, itself, not something anyone rational would have counted on, and in any case, was not long enough. On Christmas Day (fittingly), the skies cleared and our bombers were able to decimate his army a la the road between Kuwait City and Baghdad.
Here the gamble is that we can wipe out all of Iran's missiles and drones before we run out of defensive interceptors. May God protect our troops from this fate, and while He/She/They is/are at it, may the combination of Ukrainian aid in protecting our patriots and the Russian treachery Simon described this morning *finally* **force** Trump, whether he wants to or not, to come down decisively on the right side of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (as opposed to the Russia-Ukraine War, as the bothsiderist corporate media has called it since Day One).
Well so far, Trump's 'thanks' to Ukraine, is to ease sanctions on Russian oil sales to India.
Temporary apparently, but we shall see...
The key to slowing up the German attack was that US Army soldiers fought like hell to hold the key town of Bastogne. (The battling bastards of Bastogne.) This was a major transportation hub in the region. Also the fact that Patton was able to disengage and pivot the Third Army to relieve and reenforce Bastogne was huge.
Check out Heather Cox Richardson's Youtube series on the Battle of the Bulge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOYBVYE4Plk&list=PL2dS6uX1RkUzrYor1Mkn7rLG3M3xbvQp-&index=1
In the Perfect Timing department, as the Russian duplicity Simon describes is revealed, Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor yesterday to recap what Simon has been telling us for weeks is a huge story nobody is talking about enough, effectively tying Russian conduct to exactly what Trump may have been trying to avoid by starting this war: the Epstein files, in particular what they reveal about Trump, Epstein, and Russia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V8oE9PAO9k
Daily calls are in to WI members of Congress. 1st set to Republican members with a general statement about my disgust with the complicity. 2nd calls to all members regarding our multi faceted agenda. Talking to the Republican members is like talking to a brick wall but I’ll keep calling…