200 karma · joined February 2, 2018
One needn't dig too deep to see there isn't too much wiggle room for mere misunderstanding. The nearly defenseless ship suffered 2 hours of withering attack by both waves of jets and torpedo boats; this with an American flag and its hull number in open display as it operated in international waters. The context was that this ship was an intelligence ship bristling with antennas and recording everything it could from the combatants in the ongoing six-day-war in 1967.
If there's any conspiracy, its how for years afterward whenever a congressman sought an investigation as requested by one of the family of those killed, the effort was silently killed despite its impact, over and over.
There are a lot of details involved and many actions to be assessed on both sides, but it should merit more than a Navy Court of Inquiry. When the captain of the ship received his Medal of Honor for saving his ship while injured, it was awarded to him by the Secretary of the Navy quietly at the Washington Navy Yard. The usual procedure is that the MoH be presented by the president in the White House in a ceremony. So, there's that.
Saying nothing of the future of abortion & contraception, U.S. conservatives base their worldview on sexuality & reproduction and seek to burden it with fixtures that we have already spent hundreds of year to free ourselves from. At the same time, they take their eye off the ball of keeping our country competitive in the world. How embarrassing it is now to have the Chinese president suggest that the U.S. is in decline and that it shouldn't get caught in a Thucydides Trap.
Yet, that is where Trump has put us indeed.
The U.S. isn't the shining-city-on-the-hill beacon it once was. I think that's pretty clear.
Also, did you consider any other countries that you later struck from your list?
The ruling class has us just where they want us -- so focused on & fearful of losing our little jobs that we don't have context around much else so that we can do a thoughtful job of performing as an electorate. This is how you elect a Donald Trump, as THEY have now learned.
The falsity of how the SCOTUS was captured by the executive branch was ultimately rooted in lies. Trump's three nominees all lied about their position on Roe v. Wade during their confirmations.
As a case in point, consider Justice Brett Kavanaugh who wrote that Roe was "wrongly decided" in a concurring opinion on Dobbs (2022). Yet in his 2018 confirmation hearing he testified that Roe v. Wade was "important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times" and went on to discuss the importance of judicial precedent. Of course the Kavanaugh hearing was an utter circus in every sense, but it was obvious that he had lied during a number of exchanges with senators.
Let's not forget that just a few months ago in a decision, it was Kavanaugh who gave us the 'Kavanaugh stop' which is a law enforcement practice in the United States in which federal agents can stop and detain a person based on their perceived ethnicity, spoken language, and occupation. This doctrine reset what constituted 'reasonable suspicion' for any police stop.
https://uinterview.com/news/joe-rogan-mocks-man-baby-donald-... https://www.drjohnkruse.com/trump-nose-best-adderall-use-is-...
Why Trump lost in 2020 and then won in 2024 is clear. Biden's election win was no fluke. The 2024 election was about going with the devil-that-you-know, hoping that kitchen table concerns could be alleviated, and still delivered no landslide (unless you're Stephen Miller).
Just wait until all these Trump voters have to swallow the totality of merely the last 2 weeks of changes (and recissions, in some cases), and they'll find that wanting a bull in a China shop has severe consequences. After 100 days, when actual results will be expected, all the fun Trump & Musk had as they had their way uprooting bureaucrats will be over. As recriminations flow, whether Trump can hold together the crew he started with will be a major question. Interesting times.