Morning

Thirsty Thursday.

Happy Hour

Get happy

Crime License

And is the fine for murder $5000?  What is the point.

Lunch

Eat

HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY TO US ALL

A few of you, at least, have been here since near the beginning.

It has become a  odd way of life, a bit of a Hotel California, but on the whole not so bad!

Thank you for your support! To 22 MORE YEARS. I will be 74.

Paypal or Patreon, your choice.

Paypal:

Or Patreon.

Foreign Interests

Not defending Putin support, but it should also inspire a more general consideration of the various ways ($$$)  many different foreign interests have a bit of influence in DC.

I really am not thinking of Israel.

My somewhat unevidenced opinion is that members of Congress are personally much more corrupt than they used to be, aside from the obvious perpetual corruption of the security state.

Morning

Wacky Wednesday.

Tuesday Night

enjoy

Happy Hour

Get happy

TURN THE MACHINES BACK ON

 Donald's company is not doing so well.

FUNDRAISER DAY 6

1 day to go until the 22nd blogiversary! Thanks to all!

Paypal or Patreon, your choice.

Paypal:

Or Patreon.

Lunch

Eat

Options

This is a CNN headline.  

We did not see a "no easy option for Iran" equivalent.

The nice thing about the supposed rules-based order, about war crimes laws, is you don't really have to take sides to apply the framework.  Once you reject the framework, all you are doing is taking sides.

To be fair, we should remember that Iran stole the WMDs from Iraq.

Time Is Funny

The incoming university class of '28 were  born in 2006 or so, meaning they were 10 when Trump was elected.

My made up rule of thumb is that anything that happens before about age 9 is The Before Time for people, little different in concept to things that happened 20 years earlier.

The Foreign Policy Big Brains

To a great degree it is still George Bush's world. A charitable view of Tom Friedman's "suck on this" comment was that he was merely describing the attitude, not endorsing it. Either way, the idea that showing the world our big swinging dick should have a higher priority than peace has not gone away.

If you know absolutely nothing about any particular looming conflict, asking for more restraint than the government and commentariat demand is almost always the right call.

You might rememeber that the one unambiguously correct thing Trump did, the day he became president, was bombing Syria.

Morning

Trump trial nap time again today?

Sure Why Not

The kind of thing that could be mentioned in every single story, or not, depending on the demands of objectivity.

Happy Hour

Get happy.

No Nuance

It is always acceptable to say we aren't killing the baddies hard enough, but otherwise.

Any time anyone criticises the foreign policy consensus, no matter how badly they have fucked it, the response is just "you just love The Baddies you do". Are we not tired of this? Have we not had enough of this childishness?

— Tom Hatfield (@WordMercenary) April 14, 2024

I regularly write and delete posts about Ukraine because the simple point - lefties argued Western interests would be less than pure and any genuine commitment would inevitably wane because it always does - makes people mad.

Thoughts and Prayers

For Thomas.

WASHINGTON — Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was not present at the court for oral arguments on Monday, with the court giving no reason for his absence.