3. Wait, now we are being told, by Energy Secretary Chris Wright no less, that Iran is “frighteningly close” to developing weapons-grade enriched uranium? How can that be? If we have sufficient intelligence to know that, why don’t we have enough information to destroy all of the labs? We were also just told that Iran has 30 operable missiles despite all of the bombing. I don’t understand this either. Why a cease fire, then? Wright said that Iran’s enriched uranium puts the regime just weeks away from the threshold needed to get a nuclear weapon. “They are a small number of weeks away to enrich that to weapons-grade uranium. There’s still a weaponization process that happens after that, but they’re quite close,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
4. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! Around the web there are dozens of versions of this headline: “Trump: Halting Iran nuclear program outweighs Americans’ economic pain.” Of course he said that; it would be irresponsible to say anything else. I guess he could have said, “It’s worth the risk of Israel or the U.S. being fried by an Iranian nuke if gas could be a little cheaper…”
5. Speaking of trade-offs, LA’s Mayor Karen Bass actually said that taxpayers should be willing to pay for “new teeth” for homeless fentanyl addicts. I bet a lot of the woke and wonderful think this makes sense and that supplying free choppers to homeless addicts is the “right thing to do.”
6. The despicable New York Times doubled-down (a gambling term) on its publishing Nick Kristof’s nearly universally condemned piece about, among other things, Israel’s training dogs to rape Hamas prisoners. I wrote about this unethical piece by the Times and its once-respectable pundit here and there. I regard treating anyone treating the Kristof garbage with anything short of contempt as proof of an ethics vacuum.
Here was the Times standing behind its man and denying that it will retract his libel:
Look at that! It begins with citing Kristof’s past credentials, which is a reverse ad hominem: defending the act by deflecting to the actor. He’s “regarded” as a good reporter, which does not address the specifics of the report at issue. He didn’t “report firsthand” on what he alleged (without evidence), he reported hearsay testimony from sources that have an agenda against Israel and Jews.
7. I guess you can’t fix stupid, especially when it’s combined with ignorance and woke indoctrination. The Emerson Poll shows the disgraceful Karen Bass (see item #5), neck-and-neck as the most incompetent big city mayor in the nation, leading among competitors in the upcoming mayoral primary. Here’s her EA dossier. How is it possible that LA residents haven’t tarred and feathered her, never mind wanting to re-elect her?
8. Sen. Rand Paul focused a Senate committee hearing on Ethics Villain Anthony Fauci, even though, thanks to a Joe Biden autopen pardon, he can’t be prosecuted. Well, good for Paul, who had a “Deep State” whistleblower. But the mainstream media concocted a headline today to push that story out of the spotlight: “Sen. Rand Paul’s son accused of drunken, antisemitic tirade at DC bar.” And where is Nancy Guthrie?
Well, that’s not nearly everything, but I feel better.
Ethics Alarms 
#3) I’ve read several articles that state that it takes approximately one to two weeks to produce enough weapons-grade uranium (90% enrichment) for a single nuclear device starting from a 60% enriched stockpile. Iran has 60%% enriched uranium. Little boy was an enriched uranium gun-type bomb and was not tested before deployment. You just fire one mass of enriched uranium into the other mass of enriched uranium. Whether Iran has a nuclear bomb or is close is still just speculation but it is possible. The Fat Man design was a plutonium implosion device tested first, the Trinity Test in New Mexico.
Just for perspective: Little Boy used 64 kg of enriched uranium (80% enrichment).
RE #3. We have known for a long time that they had about 340 kg of 60% enriched U235. The IRGC stated they have enough material to develop 9 nuclear bombs.
We should bear in mind that 90% enriched U235 can make a big boom and kill a lot of people quickly they can also make a number of dirty bombs that don’t vaporize people and buildings they just contaminate areas and cause slow painful deaths. That is the real terror.
7. How could Bass win? She has the black vote plus the white liberal vote. The latter would never not vote for a black woman. Plus, she’s a Democrat running against a Republican white guy. Plus she’s got SEIU and the teacher’s union voting for her. She pays their salaries. That’s how she wins.
“The latter would never not vote for a black woman.”
Recent Republican candidate for Virginia Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a black woman, would beg to differ. All that matters to Democrats is the “D”. The rest is just gaslighting.
–Dwayne
3. I have some questions about whether the links are correct. The NY Post article does not make any reference to statements by Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
I have been a skeptic about the war strategy and the criteria for victory on EA. I would like to believe Brit Hume, but if Iran indeed manages to create nuclear weapons then it is hard to see how we have achieved any strategic goals, such as toppling the regime, eliminating Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and keeping open the Street of Hormuz.
The statements by administration officials from the President on down (including Chris Wright) do not give me a lot of confidence. The main reason why the USA lost wars against Vietnam and Afghanistan is that ideological zealots are willing to accept any sacrifice and hardship to meat their objectives, and have all the time. The Taliban adage was, “You have the watches, but we have the time.” The staying power of the USA is limited by public opinion, which is needed to win elections. As it stands now, the Democrats are rooting for Trump to loose the war, and they are also those on the right who just simply want the war to stop by just calling it a victory, or because they believe that Trump broke a campaign promise.
The temptation for news media on the right is to call the war a success based on how much Iran material is destroyed and how many leaders were killed. This sounds like what McNamara did during the Vietnam war, focusing only on metrics. Things that are immeasurable such as morale may be much more important.
The last time that the USA was all in on a war till its conclusion was WWII. USA entered that war only after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; only after that day FDR was able to convince the people of the necessity of war. I am afraid that only a successful nuclear attack on the USA by Iran could convince both political parties and the American people to do what is needed to achieve a strategically meaningful victory in Iran.
I am afraid that only a successful nuclear attack on the USA by Iran could convince both political parties and the American people to do what is needed to achieve a strategically meaningful victory in Iran.
I have felt the same way. Today’s Americans have never really had to sacrifice much of anything during conflicts. My parents weathered WW2 with ration stamps and I grew up in the duck and cover drills in school. Now, if gas prices simply rise to Biden era amounts we seem to want to surrender to a regime that is bent on our destruction who is financed by a our geopolitical foes that want to exert global dominance. Maybe Americans should be the serfs to some foreign government that will dictate what they can think, what they can do, where they can travel and with whom they can associate or face legal sanction. Wait to all those “protectors of democracy” no longer have any choice as to who they can vote for.
Iran will not need to nuke an American city or any other city for that matter when it develops nuclear weapons it merely needs to threaten that it will if the world does not acquiesce to their demands. When they have even one bomb they can close the Strait of Hormuz until the world bends to its will. Are we willing to preemptively nuke them before they nuke one of their neighbors and what will China and Russia do if we do?
I will say that there is historical precedent for leaving figure head leaders in place after complete capitulation. Hirohito is the one example but whether or not the civilian president is worthy of such a distinction is debatable. What is not debatable is that non of the IRGC can exist as a part of the government.
The main hindrance to winning the war in Iran is the American people. Or shall I say, winning any war. The Americans as a people do not have the fortitude as the generation that endured the Great Depression and World War II. The USA has become decadent as a whole, from the seats of power in Washington DC, to our entertainment culture and social media, to the daily lives that includes family breakdown and drugs.
Many are more concerned with the gas prices than with Iran, or with the depredations and slaughter the Iranian people have been facing at the hands of the IRGC. In the meantime the stock market is doing well. This indicates to me that any sacrifice is too much for many Americans.
It blows my mind that the Democrat Party including much of their base have so much sympathy for Hamas and so much hate for Israel, as witnessed as soon as the day after the October 7th, 2023 atrocities. A commission investigating the massacre of October 7, 2023, with a focus on the sexualized terror—including against the hostages—has released its report, and it is shocking. The same day the New York Times deflects from this news by an unbased counter story at the hands of Nick Kristof telling that Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinians.
Let’s assume the Iran in the near future is successful in developing nukes, and we have a Democrat President and Democrat controlled Congress. I will bet that this Democrat administration will resume the failed approach as the Obama administration, give Iran everything they ask for including lots money and the right to control Hormuz, and allow to let them keep the nuclear capabilities. This will be sold as a victory. Israel will be dropped like a hot potato. What if Iran uses nuclear weapons against Israel? I do not want to bet on the USA or Western Europe to come to Israel’s help.
The allies of the USA (Israel, Gulf states) will realize that the USA is not a reliable partner for the long term, due to the fickleness of the political situation in Washington DC. China and Iran know it too, and they know that all they have to do is wait for the right time.
This has happened before, in Vietnam. According to the metrics used by McNamara it appears that the USA was winning. The Tet offensive was in hindsight a battlefield success for the USA. Walter Cronkite led the mainstream media to call the Tet Offensive a failure, and the mood shifted. Nixon was able to force the North Vietnamese to the negotiation table, resulting in the Paris peace accords which ended the war.
“However, a Democrat Party that controlled both the House and the Senate immediately banned US bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and withdrew funding for ARVN (the Army of the Republic of Vietnam), the South’s regular army. Abandoned by the Democrats, the result, two years later, was the fall of Saigon. US media and the Democrats had turned victory into defeat.“
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/will-trumps-leftie-foes-turn-iran-victory-into-defeat/
Given where we stand now, with not enough popular support and the midterms looming, I am afraid the same thing will happen again. If the Democrats win Congress the Trump administration simply has no time to continue the war, busy as they will be with the next round of impeachments. Instead Trump will be tempted to call the war on Iran a victory on metrics alone, and not on meeting strategic objectives that matter (IRCG gone, nuclear disarmament of Iran, opening the strait of Hormuz).
That’s the impediment to winning any war. It’s why the US tightly controlled the news media during World War II, and if it hadn’t, I doubt that we would have finished the job. Especially since most of the public was anti-Semitic.
We left California 5 years ago because of all the Karens running the state into the ground. I don’t know what it will take for Californians to wake up and vote these morons out of office. New teeth for meth addicts is another wasteful government expense that cannot be justified on any level. It is not the right thing to do, it is the stupid thing. How many working families who struggle to pay for kids’ orthodontia will appreciate higher taxes to pay for a mouthful of implants for meth addicts? Yet they still vote against their own self-interest.
When households and businesses feel an economic squeeze, they analyze spending and make cuts. Liberals in government never do …. they imagine they can tap the well indefinitely. There is a trickle of blowback from billionaires and business owners moving to more friendly states, but the left is somehow successful in villainizing these people.
There is an article about a MoneyLion* study that analyzes the cost of essentials in all 50 states. California has the second highest annual cost of living at over $73,000, while the popular state of Florida is estimated to cost just over $44,000. West Virginia was the lowest at jut over $29,000. This tracks with our experience in New Mexico of a roughly 40% cost of living savings.
A bit of the higher cost relates to market pressures – California is a beautiful place to live so demand is high. But taxation and regulation drive costs up dramatically. For example, the total of all fees and taxes on a gallon of gas is close to $2, far higher than any other state, driving costs on almost everything produced or sold.
A smart mayor or governor would find ways to attract jobs and businesses by streamlining the tax and regulatory burdens that disincentivize growth and investment. But as you frequently point out, Jack, you can’t fix stupid.
*MoneyLion is a financial tech firm, and their study focuses on monthly budgets for retirees and how cost of living impacts the need for savings to supplement social security benefits.
That’s the impediment to winning any war, GL. It’s why the US tightly controlled the news media during World War II, and if it hadn’t, I doubt that we would have finished the job. Especially since most of the public was anti-Semitic.
2. Word around the community is that the retrial is being held where I live. Wondering if I should look it up, or avoid it in case I get called for jury duty.