Under Trump, the USA has a genuinely Orwellian government. The Office of Government Ethics is now tasked with protecting the grifters and criminals in the Trump Admin. The Civil Rights Bureau at DOJ is now in charge of denying civil rights to BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. The list goes on...
After having been caught illegally redacting files that incriminate Trump, DOJ finally published *some* of them but withheld others, evidently in the hopes that people wouldn't notice yet another partial release.
For the GOP, Trump raping a 13-year old girl is just not important.
ProPublica has done amazing work again--a searchable database of Trump administration staff, their wealth and ties to the industries they are now regulating.
projects.propublica.org/trump-team-f...
One Nazi U-Boat captain, Heinz-Wilhelm Eck, did behave like the US crew, allowing survivors to die rather than providing assistance. He was found guilty of a crime against humanity for his actions at the post-WWII war crimes trials and executed.
The Guardian does a good job of laying out the overwhelming evidence that the US was responsible for the bombing of the Minab school that killed 170 elementary school students. They also debunk the ridiculous claims that the carnage was caused by a mis-fired Iranian missile.
When the US was separate from the world, US-based prices were very depressed. That might sound like a good thing--cheap gas--but in reality is led to very low production. Tying US oil prices to world prices spurred a massive increase in production.
A domestic supply will always be prey to politics.
Most of it is refined here in the USA, but only after being blended with very heavy S American or African crude.
That's key, often overlooked fact. US refineries, particularly those located in Texas, were designed for a single type of intermediate weight crude. They become terribly inefficient, and even dangerous, when fed light oil. Refiners have to blend the light US crude with imported heavy to refine it.
There is no legal basis for that now.
Congress could enact a law restricting what can be done with oil extracted from public land, but even that could be subject to litigation from existing leaseholders since would represent an ex post facto rewriting of contract terms.
Rules governing energy prices and exports began to be lifted under Reagan, in the 1980's, but there were still elements of it until 2015, when the final rules were lifted.
Just in case anyone is confused, here's the scoop:
1) Yes, the US produces lots of oil, but that does not mean that Americans are insulated from global markets.
2) Since the Reagan Administration, US oil is traded on the global market.
3) If there is a global shortage, US consumers pay more.
Trump's approach to the State Department exactly matches Hannah Arendt's famous observation/prediction that autocrats replace highly skilled and dedicated people with "crackpots and fools" who are absolutely loyal to the dictator.
Iraq's only reactors were the 60's vintage Russian supplied IRT-2000 research reactor at the Al-Tuwaitha Nuclear Center and the 70's vintage French-supplied Osirak/Tammuz-1 reactor near Baghdad. In the late 70's, Italy supplied a bit of tech. All three of those were destroyed prior to the Iraq war.
Later, I served in Iraq and was thus able to verify what I already pretty much knew to be true. Saddam's so-called WMD program was non-existent. He had no enrichment technology. His only (and very antiquated) research reactor was incapable of weapons-related work.
As the former Director of Nuclear Materials Security at the National Security Council, it was obvious to me from the start that the WMD claims were bogus. The infamous yellow cake letter from Nigeria had the wrong signature. The aluminum "centrifuge tubes" were small rocket bodies, not centrifuges.
You keep putting words into my mouth that I never said and never would say.
I did NOT say Biden didn't care. I said is that like every President in the past 150 years, Biden did NOT interfere with DOJ decision about prosecutions. He did not order investigations into political opponents.
For the Trump Administration, an unwillingness to commit war crimes evidently represents a "supply chain risk."
I certainly hope Anthropic prevails.
I'm telling you that Biden did not interfere with DOJ. Unlike Trump, he never ordered investigations, instead letting DOJ leadership and staff make decisions.
The one way to fault Biden is to say he should never have appointed Garland, who proved too timid on multiple major cases.
He has ordered the US Development Finance Corporation to spend $20 billion more taxpayer dollars to subsidize insurance for oil tankers.
It won't be enough. Estimates of the total needed run up to $325 billion--all on the taxpayers' dime.
Yes, it is simple economics to ship owners. As we learned during the 1980's 'tanker war,' however, dead crews add greatly to that cost. During the height of the tanker war some stand-in crew were being paid up to $250,000 for a single run. Ships would swap crews just outside the "insurance line."
Then, as now, many pundits with too little knowledge talked about blocking the Strait with sunken tankers. That was never going to happen. Hole a tanker? Easy. Sink it? Really difficult.
Iranians understand tankers are very tough but humans are fragile.
Insurance protects the assets of ship owners. It does not offer magical protection for crew.
I served in the Persian Gulf during the 'tanker war.' Actually sinking a modern oil tanker is really difficult. To stop the flow of oil, Iran would attack the deck and crew quarters to deter ships.
Cadet Bone Spurs is demanding that the captains and crew of civilian oil tankers "show some guts" by risking their lives to ship oil through the Strait of Hormuz in order to decrease political pressure on Trump.
For Trump:
1) Everything is always about Trump.
2) Other people's lives don't matter.
Yes, they are. Particularly when the weapons poke fairly small, neat holes though the roofs of buildings before blowing up inside, which is what the first seven strikes did. A Tomahawk then seems to have leveled the building where surviving school children and teachers had gathered.
If you watch the video, you'll see that the school was already smoking when the Tomahawk struck. Seven precision armaments, most likely JDAM's, struck the area, including one that hit the school. Several minutes later (after survivors had gathered), the Tomahawk struck, killing survivors.
He is just as hard line as his father, and even more likely to unleash the IRCG on citizens of Iran.
Based on what friends in the region have told me, Bellingcat has identified the tomahawk that was used as a "second tap."
The school was first hit, likely by a US JDAM. Teachers then gathered survivors into a remaining building. That building was then hit killing them all.
Germany and Japan come to mind.
I also believe that US action to stop the Balkan war saved thousands of lives. (It would have saved more if it started earlier.)
The reporting is 100% accurate. Even Faux News realized how disrespectful is was for Trump to wear tacky merch he sells on his website so they substituted a different image.
By continuing to insist that the school in Minab was hit by a stray Iranian missile, Trump is doubling down on his belief that his supporters are stupid and gullible.
Seven bombs hit, not one. The impact marks match those of US munitions designed to penetrate then explode.
