Post election prediction

[Shaggy Hiker]

Niya, you seem to think that everybody must cower before power. You said that Ukraine clearly couldn't win against Russia, suggesting that they should just accept their fate. Now you suggest that military weapons are proof against insurrection. Are you suggesting that upon a show of might, everybody should meekly submit? Must might always be met with acquiescence, or is there some point at which a weaker body should stand up to abuse by a more powerful body?

[wes4dbt]

People are still pushing this nonsense?

So they're trying to tell everyone that this guy:-


Could overthrow a government with this:-


And this:-


And this:-


And this:-


And this:-


Call me crazy, but I think the American government can defend itself just fine against the QAnon Shaman. Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps he can sink aircraft carriers with his farts.

But on a serious note, I find it very telling that the media is still trying to sell this ridiculous "insurrection" narrative. It means they think you're stupid and who can blame them, they correctly guessed that a lot of people would actually believe this. Americans should be insulted by this.

Your applying a unrealistic definition of what the term "insurrection" means.

an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government

They were violently trying to overthrow an election. That definitely fits the definition.

[dilettante]

How was a protest outside the Capitol going to overthrow anything?

We know where the lawlessness lies: with those attempting to impede the apprehension of criminals.

Every day more people stand up against the excesses of the Democrats and their bizarre attempts to hijack the culture. As reported by CNN even the immigrant population has shifted toward Trump's policies by 40 points!

The narrative has crumbled in the light of day.

[wes4dbt]

How was a protest outside the Capitol going to overthrow anything?

That's the most dishonest or most delusional description of what happened that I've ever read.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It's been moving further and further away from reality. First it wasn't an insurrection, then it was peaceful (or at least Trump supporters were peaceful), and now it's outside the Capitol. Pretty soon they'll be claiming they weren't even in Washington and never even left their own houses.

[Niya]

Niya, you seem to think that everybody must cower before power. You said that Ukraine clearly couldn't win against Russia, suggesting that they should just accept their fate. Now you suggest that military weapons are proof against insurrection. Are you suggesting that upon a show of might, everybody should meekly submit? Must might always be met with acquiescence, or is there some point at which a weaker body should stand up to abuse by a more powerful body?

A serious attempt to overthrow the American political system by force would likely involve coordinated foreign and domestic operatives with substantial funding, expert training, and precise planning. It could include targeted assassinations, bombings, infiltration of key institutions, disruption of communications, and manipulation of public sentiment to weaken the government's ability to respond.

Now, is that what they told you? No. Instead they try to tell you that this guy is going to do it:-


And he's going to do it by smashing stuff while shouting like some crazy drunk on a Friday night.

They sell you this narrative because they think you're stupid. That is the point I was making.

[Niya]

By the way, before you take it too literally, I don't mean to say that the QAnon Shaman is going to overthrow the government himself. I'm using him as the template to represent the kinds of people that were there that day. Normal rank and file Americans who let their emotions get out of control, hardly a group capable of a coup or insurrection, much less against the most powerful union of states on the planet.

[dilettante]

Seriously people? You really are on the wrong side of the reality-distortion field.

"The Left is Selling Chaos. America Isn’t Buying."

[FunkyDexter]

Really? You're reduced to citing the Daily Signal?

Bias and Reliability.

You've fallen down a far right rabbit hole.

[Niya]

This just showed up on my Twitter feed:-


Looks like WW3 is about to start.

[dilettante]

"The NGO known as CHIRLA was centrally involved in the LA riots. The organization, which has previously sponsored a campaign to abolish ICE, alerted the rioters to where ICE operations were occurring in real time. The agitators would then show up and disrupt ICE activities, including through the use of violence," Kiley said.

"This group is a major campaign contributor to Gavin Newsom and has received $34 million in state funding. An investigation is absolutely appropriate and necessary."

IRS records obtained by Fox News show CHIRLA has received $34 million in government grants, including three from former President Joe Biden's administration for $750,000.

This goes far, far beyond anything related to January 6th.

[dilettante]

Really? You're reduced to citing the Daily Signal?

As usual, discrediting the messenger when there is no defense against the message. This is a core losing strategy of the extreme left.

[wes4dbt]

Looks like WW3 is about to start.

Why a World War???

[wes4dbt]

"The NGO known as CHIRLA was centrally involved in the LA riots. The organization, which has previously sponsored a campaign to abolish ICE, alerted the rioters to where ICE operations were occurring in real time. The agitators would then show up and disrupt ICE activities, including through the use of violence," Kiley said.

I wouldn't doubt they were involved in the protests, immigration issues are why they were formed. Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in LA. As for the riots an being agitators I would need more than an unsupported claim by someone named Kiley.

"This group is a major campaign contributor to Gavin Newsom and has received $34 million in state funding. An investigation is absolutely appropriate and necessary."

IRS records obtained by Fox News show CHIRLA has received $34 million in government grants, including three from former President Joe Biden's administration for $750,000.

I'm not interested in verifying the numbers. But even if they're correct, what is the problem? They were establish in 1986, that's less than a million a year, not unusual amount of government grants/funding.

This goes far, far beyond anything related to January 6th.

I don't know what you mean by "This". Are you talking about what happened in LA a few days ago or are you still talking about CHIRLA?

Either way, I don't see why January 6th is relevant. Are you trying to justify Jan 6th? Why would you need to do that if it was just, "a protest outside the Capitol".

[Niya]

Why a World War???

This isn't Ukraine and Russia. Lets not beat around the bush about this, America and NATO don't give two shits about Ukraine. They're just using that poor country as a pawn in a big pissing contest with Russia and also to fuel America's military industrial complex. It's just business. But you know who America does care about? Israel.

Israel has launched a direct strike against a sovereign nation—and not just any nation, but one with real power: Iran. I can’t imagine a scenario where Iran doesn’t respond. If they don’t, they risk being seen as a paper tiger, which would severely weaken their influence on the global stage. A response seems inevitable. Maybe someone can come up with a way for them to save face without retaliating, but I can’t see how.

Once Iran does respond, U.S. involvement is almost guaranteed—this is Israel we’re talking about. From there, the dominoes start to fall. NATO could be drawn in, which would likely provoke their adversaries to act as well. No one can say exactly how it will unfold, but one thing’s certain: it would be chaos on a scale the world hasn’t seen in generations.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong.

[wes4dbt]

This isn't Ukraine and Russia. Lets not beat around the bush about this, America and NATO don't give two shits about Ukraine. They're just using that poor country as a pawn in a big pissing contest with Russia and also to fuel America's military industrial complex. It's just business. But you know who America does care about? Israel.

Israel has launched a direct strike against a sovereign nation—and not just any nation, but one with real power: Iran. I can’t imagine a scenario where Iran doesn’t respond. If they don’t, they risk being seen as a paper tiger, which would severely weaken their influence on the global stage. A response seems inevitable. Maybe someone can come up with a way for them to save face without retaliating, but I can’t see how.

Once Iran does respond, U.S. involvement is almost guaranteed—this is Israel we’re talking about. From there, the dominoes start to fall. NATO could be drawn in, which would likely provoke their adversaries to act as well. No one can say exactly how it will unfold, but one thing’s certain: it would be chaos on a scale the world hasn’t seen in generations.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong.

Iran already has responded. Israel has attacked Iran many times in the past, then Iran responds, then nothing changes. The US has always supported Israel but only from the sidelines. Not sure how much support Israel actually needs. Lately they have been attacking several countries in the region and no one has wanted to do more than show a token response. It's been fairly surprising to me, the lack of response from the various countries Israel has attacked.

It does feel like Israel is pushing it's luck. If it does turn into a full scales war, I'm not sure what level of involvement the US or NATO would have. I'm not sure which NATO adversaries would get involved. Russia sure couldn't get very involved, they're barely keeping their head above water in Ukraine. China got a long history not getting involved. North Korea, not sure what they could do, already helping Russia.

But your right, no one knows how these things will unfold.

[sapator]

The "problem" is that Iran do not have powerful allies, not just help from the sidelines but go on war.
So there is a very slim change of escalation. Most Muslim countries around are Sunni or the other thing Sheit something like that and Iran the opposite so there is not help there. As wes said Russia and China might help on the sidelines but not involve and US might bring a boat or 2 but that is about it.
So hopefully it won't go to WWIII as I'm starting my vacations soon

Edit, also do not count on NATO the bunch of warkers .

[TysonLPrice]

This goes far, far beyond anything related to January 6th.

Only because you refuse to understand what happened. The overthrow was organized months before it occurred with careful coordination across the country. You beliefs go far, far beyond reality.

[TysonLPrice]

"Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries"

I guess some immigrants aren't as bad as others..

[wes4dbt]

"Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries"

I guess some immigrants aren't as bad as others..

Now if he could just change his stance on violating peoples civil rights.

The tariffs have shown Trump will reverse course if there is enough blow back from his supporters. That's good but he is only solving a problem he created.

[FunkyDexter]

discrediting the messenger

I don't need to discredit the messenger when it's the Daily Signal. You might as well get your news from the Beano. Mind you, the Bash Street Kids could probably have done a better job than DOGE.


So it looks like his Big Beautiful Parade has been as big a washout as his Big Beautiful Bill.


BIG protests though.

[Shaggy Hiker]

This isn't Ukraine and Russia. Lets not beat around the bush about this, America and NATO don't give two shits about Ukraine. They're just using that poor country as a pawn in a big pissing contest with Russia and also to fuel America's military industrial complex. It's just business. But you know who America does care about? Israel.

Israel has launched a direct strike against a sovereign nation—and not just any nation, but one with real power: Iran. I can’t imagine a scenario where Iran doesn’t respond. If they don’t, they risk being seen as a paper tiger, which would severely weaken their influence on the global stage. A response seems inevitable. Maybe someone can come up with a way for them to save face without retaliating, but I can’t see how.

Once Iran does respond, U.S. involvement is almost guaranteed—this is Israel we’re talking about. From there, the dominoes start to fall. NATO could be drawn in, which would likely provoke their adversaries to act as well. No one can say exactly how it will unfold, but one thing’s certain: it would be chaos on a scale the world hasn’t seen in generations.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong.

I share your concerns over this, but I do think you are wrong about one point in it. Under any other president, I think US involvement would be almost guaranteed. Trump seems unlikely to want to be directly involved. He's willing to do things that take a day or two, but any longer term commitment appears to be of no interest to him.

One thing could be pretty interesting, though. Trump isn't much of a negotiator, but he has shown repeatedly that if somebody is dumb enough to put their balls in his hand, he's smart enough to squeeze them. Netanyahu may have just made that mistake.

[TysonLPrice]

"Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries"

I guess some immigrants aren't as bad as others..

Oops...backtracked

Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including its Homeland Security Investigations division, told agency leaders in a call Monday that agents must continue conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels and restaurants, according to two people familiar with the call. The new instructions were shared in an 11 a.m. call to representatives from 30 field offices across the country.

[Peter Porter]

I seriously thought American service men and women at last weekend's Army parade were all going to march like they did on Bastille Day in 2017, in Paris:



Some did, but not all. They probably were all locked in stepped to begin with, but by the time they were within Trump's viewing range, some groups were out of step.

What totally irked me was the commercialization of the whole thing, when the announcer mentioned Coinbase, UFC, Phorn energy drink, and others as sponsors of the parade. It came off like a side hustle to make money off an event.

[TysonLPrice]

I seriously thought American service men and women at last weekend's Army parade were all going to march like they did on Bastille Day in 2017, in Paris:



Some did, but not all. They probably were all locked in stepped to begin with, but by the time they were within Trump's viewing range, some groups were out of step.

What totally irked me was the commercialization of the whole thing, when the announcer mentioned Coinbase, UFC, Phorn energy drink, and others as sponsors of the parade. It came off like a side hustle to make money off an event.

Here are a few businesses that chipped in and I imagine want something back:

Bell Textron
Wounded Warrior Project
Walmart
GOVX
Leonardo DRS
RTX Corporation
Lockheed Martin
Leidos
Armed Forces Mutual
Boeing
First Command
General Electric Aerospace
T-Mobile
King George
InterContinental Hotels Group
The NFL
Oracle
UFC
Coinbase
Palantir
Amazon
Exiger
Scott's Miracle Gro
Phorm Energy
FedEx

[FunkyDexter]

I'm kinda 50/50 on that. I think the whole parade thing was a massive white elephant but, if we're going to accept that it was happening, then we need to find a satisfactory way to pay for it. If the private sector didn't act as sponsors then the whole burden would have fallen on the tax payer and we'd have been criticising Trump for that instead. I don't think I've really got a problem with it as long as it's transparent.

I'm trying to think if there's a precedent. Obviously private companies sponsor e.g. sporting events. I can't think of a "government" event that's been sponsored in the way but I'm sure there must have been some.

[Shaggy Hiker]

What I'm curious about is that Trump wanted this parade in his first term and people pointed out that the streets in Washington are not designed to handle the weight of tanks. That doesn't appear to have changed. An Abrams weighs about twice what those roads are designed to carry, from my understanding of it. Were there side effects?

[wes4dbt]

With my twisted sense of humor, when I saw photos of the parade I started laughing because there were police officers lining the routine to protect our military. It just struck me as funny. The reality of why they were there took a while to sink in.

All in all, it was just one of those over emphasized (pro and con) events of no real consequence.

[wes4dbt]

Trump does want countries to surrender quickly, Ukraine, Palestinians and now Iran. Also telling the people of Tehran to evacuate, wonder where 10 million people could go. Maybe Trump has plans for another resort like in Gaza.

It looks like sapator was right about Iran not being liked. I haven't seen anyone stepping up to defend Iran. Even though it was attacked by Israel. Israel has it's stock excuse "stop the nuclear weapons". Of course, Iran makes it easy to side with Israel, when some there call for "death to all Israeli's".

You think things are bad here and they are worse than normal, but when you look around the world, it doesn't seem to dire here. It would help if people wouldn't rage about everything. But that does seem to be the norm.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I have heard that in Iran, the "death to..." phrase is pretty much like "screw <whatever>" in the US (or a slight different version). We don't mean it as a literal instruction (or at least most people don't mean it literally), it's just a figure of speech.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I saw some video from the parade which had Sherman tanks. Since the Sherman is roughly half the weight of an Abrams, was that done to spare the roads? Were there Abrams tanks?

And what about the dog?

[wes4dbt]

I have heard that in Iran, the "death to..." phrase is pretty much like "screw <whatever>" in the US (or a slight different version). We don't mean it as a literal instruction (or at least most people don't mean it literally), it's just a figure of speech.

Yeah, they chant the same thing about Americans. They do fund a lot of anti Israeli military groups. They would definitely like bad things to happen to Israel. I don't know how widely held that feeling is or if it's mainly driven by the government.

Iran just makes it so easy to dislike them.

[FunkyDexter]

Like it or not, Iran definitely qualify as "bad guys". They've financed the overwhelming bulk of terrorism in the region including Hezbollah, Hams, Yemeni militias and so on. I do find it hard to summon up much sympathy for the regime (though I do feel for the populace who generally seem to be quite moderate from my limited experience). Thing is, I find it equally difficult to summon up sympathy for the Israeli government. When your looking at both sides and thinking "you're both basically genocidal", what position do you take? "Would you mind stopping that?" doesn't seem to cut it.

I think Niya said upthread that this could be WW3. I don't think that's quite right but I do think that 1. America and possibly other Western nations could get drawn in and 2. Nuclear weapons could get used, though probably tactical rather than strategic. If that's your definition for WW3 then it could be met.

1. America is clearly getting drawn in already. Trump's tweets and Israel's need for bunker busters which only the US can provide sure feel like that's the direction of momentum. Given their recent actions, I don't think many other Western nations will support Israel at the moment though that calculus would change rapidly if Iran deployed some kind of nuclear weapon. I think there's a higher chance of Western Nations supporting the US if they're drawn in as a proxy. Trump has blown A LOT of the goodwill toward the US but I think the historical inertia still has considerable gravity - I think we still view you as an ally, if an unreliable one.

2. Iran won't deploy nuclear weapons because they're strong, they'll do it because they're weak. Israel may be small but their military capability massively outstrips Iran's. Iran has lost it's proxy allies in Hezbollah and Hamas and Russia is no longer in any position to support them so they're basically isolated. I can't see any way they can prevail through conventional means and, given that Israel seems hell bent on regime change, it's hard to see any argument for why Iran would not deploy whatever nuclear capability they've got.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Like it or not, Iran definitely qualify as "bad guys". They've financed the overwhelming bulk of terrorism in the region including Hezbollah, Hams,

Hams are only a regional terror, and that's largely because of the dietary rules of the groups that inhabit the area. It's like they're bacon in the sun over there.

I don't think the US will be drawn in the way it was drawn into Iraq. It sure does sound like we'll get involved, but probably only to the extent of some aerial attacks that will stop once Iran offers Trump a bunch of shiny baubles stacked up. I don't think one will do. Considering the region, I expect they'll need to offer him a tower of bauble.

[FunkyDexter]

Damn you, autocorrect. It's turned me into an antisemite!

True story: A while back I was in a Star Wars conversation on WhatsApp. I wrote "I blame the Jedi". Autocorrect changed Jedi to Jews. Not my finest hour.

[sapator]

If Iran is financing Hams then Turkey is the godfather and a lot more and they are trying to start a nuclear program also.
So, I don't know...Let's take Constantinople back? But with our sold our slugdogs and NATO triangle cubists we are more opt to be speaking Turkish the years to come.

[Shaggy Hiker]

You are combining Ham and Turkey??? Were you just ducking other meats, or were you too chicken to add them? Either way, it sounds fishy and so I have a beef with you!

[wes4dbt]

Iran won't deploy nuclear weapons because they're strong, they'll do it because they're weak.

It sounds as if you think Iran has a secret stash of nuclear weapons. Maybe that's why they didn't unconditionally surrender when Trump told them they should.

It sure does sound like we'll get involved, but probably only to the extent of some aerial attacks that will stop once Iran offers Trump a bunch of shiny baubles stacked up

Trump yo-yos so much that I don't even try to figure out what he's going to actually do. If the US does get involved my guess would pretty much match your guess.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Trump doesn't so much yo-yo as bluster, then chicken out. He has no stomach for a prolonged engagement, whether military or anything else, unless it keeps the focus on him. This won't keep the focus on him, so he won't stick with it. If we had boots on the ground, the media would be talking about that, so it won't happen unless those boots can be off the ground quickly.

I do think he'd be willing to bomb some place, or provide munitions for Israel to bomb some place. I don't believe he'd be willing to do more than that. Had he been in charge when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, he would have authorized the Doolittle Raid, then spent all of his time focusing on interning Japanese people.

[sapator]

You are combining Ham and Turkey??? Were you just ducking other meats, or were you too chicken to add them? Either way, it sounds fishy and so I have a beef with you!

Lol. Actually they are called something else now Turki-ye or something. They predicted a Shaggy pun.