VaporTrail

3 hours ago, MLD Woody said:

And I disagree with a lot of this

- you could easily argue the other journalists, the ones you're calling "mouthpieces", aren't getting an interview with Putin because Putin knows that's not the best avenue for him. He wants entrenched in the far right of American politics, Tucker has that audience and wants views. Putin isn't there cuz Tucker is some award winning spectacular journalist (he's as much of a mouthpiece and anyone you were grouping in before). Putin is there to mainline propaganda to the audience he wants to reach. 

- it is well known at this point that Twitter views don't come close to equating to YouTube views. Just an instance in a feed where it's partially visible is a view. Then throw in the fact there's a lot of smoke around Elon boosting view count on things he wants to succeed (Tucker, that one Mr Beat video, etc). That view count is meaningless as a comparison to traditional media or even YouTube. Tucker was basically the face of Fox News. On in nursing homes across the nation. He's absolutely fallen back to Earth. 

- I've seen some things with Tucker since he left where he seems like much less of hardcore right. But then again we know a lot of that was him playing a character based on Fox News's case with Dominion. I'll need to watch the interview. Hopefully it is less egregious than what it will be if he were still on Fox. 

- I do agree that an independent journalist will have more freedom to do something like this and to push the interview in different directions. The pros and cons of less oversight. 

Not exactly the same vein, but I've been enjoying all of the content Channel 5 has been pushing out 

The audience for this interview will include much more than "the far right of American politics." What would you have liked him to ask instead? I personally would've liked to see him push Putin on Prigozhin and Wagner. 

14 hours ago, MLD Woody said:

Reminder that we have a poster on here that still constantly complains about "Obamao"

horseshoe theory

14 hours ago, MLD Woody said:

To be fair, his star absolutely finished since leaving Fox

This is a hell of a shark jump though. Maybe not fair to say shark jump, but still a big play. 

And he absolutely knows this will generate outrage and attention and clicks. I'm guessing that's more the motivation than any kind of journalistic duty

I disagree with a lot of this. The "journalists" calling Tucker a "diminished figure" are corporate mouthpieces who will never sniff an interview of this magnitude. The interview with Putin will be more viewed than anything he ever did with Fox News. I don't follow him regularly, but just scrolling through his twitter feed it looks like his show episodes typically get more views than the highest rated shows on Fox. As it turns out, the rest of the media following Fox News' example and aiming for the lowest common denominator isn't really sustainable. 

Tucker's not on the same level as Howard Stern/Jon Stewart/Bill O'Reilly when it comes to talent as an interviewer, but he did a decent job. Asked Putin questions that I would think most Americans would want to be asked. I didn't see anything in the interview that I'd consider a dereliction of journalistic duty (something he did regularly on Fox News). I'd love for him to interview Zelensky in the same manner, but I doubt the US State Department will let him do an interview that isn't meant to propagandize their war effort. The Putin interview already has over 50M views. Zelensky would probably love to have his message out to that many people. 

Putin's answers weren't anything that he hasn't said in front of a camera the last two years. Lots of realpolitik and a bit of Nazism in Ukraine as a bogeyman. I was happy to see that Carlson pushed him on using that argument as a justification for invasion. I was very surprised that Carlson also spent 10 minutes of the interview arguing with Putin for the release of an American political prisoner. I just can't see a corporate journalist arguing with Putin like Carlson did there. Many of those worthless journalists were calling him a traitor for simply doing the interview, and they wonder why people stopped listening to them. 

Carlson is such a "diminished figure" that he now has the world's attention with this interview. I shouldn't be surprised by this kind of reaction, but these people actually think that good journalism means ignoring people you disagree with. The trend of journalists going independent has been a godsend. 

And holy shit is the DC/EU establishment seething. Heaven forbid the general public hear what Putin has to say about US foreign policy. Might bring to light some uncomfortable double standards between the two countries - especially when compared to the conflict in Israel/Gaza. 

Personally, I'm more interested to see the tone of Carlson's interview than Putin's answers. I hope he asks Putin hard questions that, if asked by a Russian journalist, would cause them to mysteriously fall out of a window a few days later. Some of the things I want him to ask are what his thoughts are on his underperforming military or how there are a bunch of Ukrainian saboteurs planting explosives in factories, assassinating Russians, and droning people on Russian soil. 

Request you rename this thread to: The Bipartisan Border Bill (Or how I learned to stop worrying and fund the wars of two foreign nations)

16 minutes ago, Canton Dawg said:

The easiest way to stem the flow of illegals is to take away their incentive to come here.

There are intrinsic advantages to emigrating from a 2nd/3rd world country to the US that have nothing to do with our government's immigration policies. The dollar has a lot more purchasing power than their shithole currency. If you had to choose between working for pesos or dollars, you'd choose the dollars every time. But to your point, the extrinsic benefits that Uncle Sam is currently providing illegals is insane and it's in big part why the migration has risen. It's a slap in the face to every American citizen living below the poverty line. 

42 minutes ago, cccjwh said:

Anyone can go over or through a wall if there is no one there to stop them. Which is what happens most of the time. Which is why a wall is so useless. But don't worry a contractor will get pay really well to go patch it over and over again. But you have to accept reality to figure this stuff out.

Border Wall Was Breached 11 Times Per Day in 2022 | Cato at Liberty Blog

These billion dollar walls are easily cut through with conventional power saws that cost as little as $100. Of course, these are just the breaches that have been discovered. Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported:

After smuggling crews cut through, they often disguise the breaches with tinted putty, making it difficult for agents to recognize which bollards have been compromised. The smugglers can return again and again to the site until the damage is detected, using the breach like a secret entrance. “They cut it with a fair amount of precision,” said one person with detailed knowledge of the sawing tactics who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. “You have to look really closely to see it.”...

As I have explained previously, the Trump border wall failed for all the predictable reasons. Immigrants used cheap ladders to climb over it, or they free climb it. They cut through small pieces and squeezed through, and they cut through big sections and drove through. In one small section in 2020, they sawed through at least 18 times that Border Patrol knew about in a month. They also made tunnels. Some tunnels were long, including the longest one ever discovered, but some were short enough just to get past the barrier.

The only place a border wall is useful is in highly populated regions of the border that can be manned with patrol, and even so, it can be beaten with a shovel, saw, or ladder. The infrastructure it takes to get a construction crew out to the desert will ironically make that desert more easily traversable for illegals. It's not a good use of tax dollar, and it pretty much only served as a symbol for Trump rather than an actual deterrent to enter (though I have treated injuries of some illegals who jumped down from it). 

3 hours ago, cccjwh said:

Because he wants to prevent Russia from taking over the Ukraine and you morons said you wouldn't fund Ukraine bill w/o border bill. Now you morons are moving the goalposts, because your lord and savior doesn't want it. He wants to be able to be cry about during the election. So no longer an emergency/crisis, please stop saying it is. You have no policies/platforms or principles other than following your cult leader. 

Good. These massive bills shouldn't be mashed together and do just barely enough to please everyone to vote for it. If the federal government can't agree on anything because of partisan paralysis, then fine, get the hell out of the way and leave it to the states.

Texas can keep shipping illegals into sanctuary cities until the NIMBY blue voters realize the illegals actually do pose a problem to their communities. 

Can't agree on which foreign war to fund? That's also fine. Paralysis is a better outcome than spending my tax dollars to put a 55 year old Ukrainian man in the trenches or arming the already well funded IDF so they can kill more Gazans. Stop funding the wars of foreigners with our tax dollars. 

I, for one, am happy with the response so far. It's not going to please many people at home, but what he's done so far hasn't done anything to threaten trade in the Persian Gulf. The combination of the trade war with Russia and the Houthis locking down the Mandeb Strait are probably going to spike inflation and gas prices in an election year. The only way Biden gets a strong economy going into the election is if he stops the sanctions/proxy war on Russia (which might happen) and if the Houthis open up the Red Sea (which will never happen because he will provide unwavering arms supplies to Israel).

This guy is about to drop some bombs on IRGC advisers in Iraq and his intern is Elmoposting on POTUS twitter. I'm fucking dying. 😂

9 hours ago, cccjwh said:

There was an increase in attacks after Cheetos killed Soleimani. There were attacks throughout Cheetos time as president. The selective memory of the cult members is what I pointed out. Pretending to be a strong man didn't reduce the number of attacks. 

It doesn't matter how  ByDon responds, the cult members here will say it was the wrong thing to do. I don't disagree with much of what you stated. Odd to have a sane response on this forum.

It needs to be a measured response and it really ought not to touch any Iranian soil. My guess (my hope) is that they're going to target some Iranian advisers in Iraq and some of the militia leaders. After Soleimani, Trump gave the IRGC an out and allowed them to pump their chest and take some victories back to the Iranian people. I'm not sure Biden is going to be able to walk away from this one with a victory he can bring back to the voters here. 

4 hours ago, cccjwh said:

What a surprise the cult members seemed to forget all the service members killed while Cheetos was in office. But you guys don't care about reality, so carry on.

No American lives were lost as a result of the assassination of Soleimani. Trump ordered him killed because he just so happened to be in Baghdad the week the US embassy in Iraq was nearly overrun and turned into another Benghazi or Tehran. Trump put a hit on the ringleader of it. Trump declined the option to bomb the shit out of some of Iran's oil infrastructure because it would've killed a bunch of innocent people working there. Iran responded, as you said, by hijacking tankers, bombing Saudi oil fields, and hitting American bases with precision munitions, but all of those were done with the purpose of avoiding civilian deaths. How Trump handled that was the pinnacle of brinksmanship on the world stage in the last 20 years. If he had opted to go through with hitting Iranian infrastructure, any collateral damage of civilians would be used as justification to just straight up drop cruise missiles on the barracks of US soldiers or hotels of US civilians. Trump killed a general in the IRGC and Iran responded with non-lethal force. You cannot spin that as a failure. If you want to talk about Trump's failures in foreign policy, by all means, bring up Somalia, Niger, or Yemen and you'll have a point - but if you're trying to use the Soleimani retaliation as an example, then you don't know what you're talking about. 

Biden is now in an even more precarious position than Trump was. The safety of global trade provided by the omnipotent US Navy is now being questioned. Maersk has long had special escort contracts with the US Navy. Those contracts are now null and void because they don't feel the USN can provide adequate protection across the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. The usual GOP warhawks (idiots) are calling for a massive retaliation. Even Biden's NSC spokesman has placed the blame on Iran. 

Without a firm response, in an election year, Biden could easily make the argument for Trump that Biden is a weak leader. This is an outcome that must be avoided at all costs by the DC establishment.

With too firm of a response, Biden risks the global economy collapsing and initiating a world war. If attacked, Iran, seeing how difficult of a time the US is having taking control of the Bab-el-Mandeb, would consider shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. In this scenario, essentially, all oil exports going from the Middle East to East Asia would be halted. This would put China in a dire situation as they are export dependent (a la Japan in 1941).

Meanwhile, Russian soldiers in Ukraine and within Russia have been getting killed by weaponry provided to Ukraine by the West. To this point, Russia has limited its attacks to the Ukrainian border. It is unclear if this is because they are too weak to do anything more or if they are taking into account political considerations. If they aren't worried about a response from NATO/EU, then any attack that Biden hits Iran with could also be used as justification to hit Western suppliers and supply lines beyond Ukraine's border. 

The US still has the most powerful military in the world, but the problem is that the people we bullied throughout the cold war have closed the gap. We can't park a carrier group in the Persian Gulf anymore without worrying about it being smoked by a barrage of cruise missiles and air/sea drones. Failures of US force projection in Ukraine and the Red Sea demonstrate that our government is being run by MIC think tank morons who thought that we are as powerful as we were in 1991. I personally don't want to be vaporized by an H bomb, so I would hope that Biden prioritizes avoiding a major escalation. However, the idiots advising him might feel that losing the 2024 election to Trump is a bigger priority. They do have bunkers in the mountains to hide in, after all. I do not. 

5 minutes ago, Axe said:

Your boy Biden's weakness

I voted Trump in 2016 and 2020, dipshit. 

What did they die for? 

Cal flies the Israeli flag above the American flag at his house. 

And then there's this closeted homosexual once again banging the war drum. If you declare war on Iran, then not only will the Red Sea be shut down from trade from the bullshit going on in Israel/Gaza, but the Iranians would then embargo the Persian Gulf to trade. I guess it's not a bad move if your goal is to shut down the global economy and force WW3.

Why are we even there? 3 proxy wars now - Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, and Yemen/Red Sea. I cannot believe that we are sacrificing American lives so that Israel can genocide Gaza. Idiotic. Get our guys the fuck out of there. 

Ken Dorsey. Really?

If the goal is to shut up fans/media from calling for Stefanski to stop calling plays, then this is a 10/10 hire. 

This has got to be the most bizarre EO I've ever seen (text below).

If it's a retaliation against what Texas is doing on the border, then he's cutting off the nose to spite the face. After destruction of the nordstream pipeline, the EU has become very dependent on American LNG (see graph below). Germany's energy suppliers immediately responded with concerns that this EO may have severe negative economic and social impacts (last text below).

Sure, this might hurt Texans' wallets, but this will absolutely FUCK Europeans. European energy suppliers ramped up production of LNG tankers last year to make up for lost energy from Russia - the tankers cost a quarter of a billion each! I never thought I'd see the day where the neoliberals in the EU break step with the Democrats here, but here we are. I would not be shocked if this is the event that pushes Germany to cozy up with Russia. It's absolutely insane how poor Biden's foreign policy is - he's alienating just about everyone. 

Damn. Wish he'd have stayed. Would have loved to see Day get over the hump and beat Harbaugh. 

Sorry JAFBF, I didn't realize there was another thread. 

Anyways, this seems like a really odd hill for Biden to die on during an election year. Even NYC is getting sick of the influx illegals. 

25 governors, including Dewine, have signed a letter of support for Abbott's decision. Co-signatory governors' states shown in the image below. 

4 hours ago, Browns149 said:

Could be the same as Pete Carrroll.

It did however take 6 years for the NCAA to finally put the hammer to USC. Including vacating their National Title. The violations took place in 2004 and 2005. Carroll didn’t leave until 2010, right before the hammer dropped

Vacating a title is the dumbest punishment in the history of sports. We all watched the game and saw who won. 

Just now, DieHardBrownsFan1 said:

I'm moving to Subic Bay.

Bongbong Marcos has his hands full right now. I wonder if the PLAN makes a move on the Spratly Islands before Taiwan.