I think he’s well aware of the moral fiber of the Republican congressmen. That’s why he doesn’t think they’ll lift a finger to stop it. They may think it’s a terrible idea (clearly, they voted with Democrats against it), but weighed against their tax breaks and judges, they won’t lift a finger.
Just as an aside, but has the thought ever crossed your mind wondering if this was one of the goals of the propaganda?
I’m giving them way too much credit, but for 8 years we heard horror stories of what a tyrant Obama was. We heard how he was going to cancel elections and remain in power. We heard about how he was coming for our guns and our freedom and even Christmas!
Now granted I chalk up a lot of that fear-mongering to driving up clicks, viewers, and gun sales, but sometimes a part of me can’t help but wonder… has the last eight years of that noise normalized such ideas for the Trump cult? If he were to contemplate cancelling elections, instead of being horrifying would it instead be “Well, it’s what Obama tried to do, our side should do it”. Were the exaggerations of Obama’s overreach (and Obama did have to rely heavily on EO’s especially with congressional obstruction, no doubt about it) setting the stage for the GOP president to do the same?
Anyway, just been a thought I’ve had a time or two.
Wasn’t much different 170 years ago. Democrats and Whigs or the equivalents depending on year often railed against things like the presidential veto or Supreme Court verdicts on constitutionality, but when they got into power used exactly the same tools to implement their agendas. Some stuff doesn’t change much.
There is a reason advertising exists. I look at Faux News, Breitbart, etc nothing more than advertising for the Republicans.
It works.
Someone please go get Lindsey Graham his fan and fainting couch! He could perspire at any moment.
I can’t keep my neoconservatives straight. I would’ve thought he was a fan.
Give him 2 days.
Maybe we should bomb Saudi Arabia instead of whatever it is we’re bombing this week:
Transit through Jeddah for vacation during Ramadan. You’ll love the place.
The stories I heard about life in Saudi from some of the SE Asians and S Asians on my forums is fucking crazy. They go out there and some just end up in the real life equivalent of The Hostel or something. Slavery and torture await the disappeared workers. Even in public and under law they cut off the heads of Indonesian girl accused of witchcraft and then dangled the corpse from a helicopter and flew it over Jeddah dripping blood everywhere, what goes in behind closed doors is even more horrific.
The craziest account i read many many years ago which i then thought was probably a Red Room urban legend/invented propaganda was of East European and Scandinavian girls lured out to Gulf for jobs as models/nannies ending up in harems, and it was an account of an Asian nurse who assisted with forced genital mutilations on all the slave girls. Now ive seen auctions of Yazidi girls I’m no longer am sure it was just an urban legend.
I tell you what, none of the tech-thrillers/near future sci-fi I read back in the day foresaw low-tech insurgents engaged in strategic bombing using off-the-shelf drones* Some of the cyberpunk stuff I guess, Dark Future and that. It’s a fairly noteworthy event though in just what can be done by smaller forces. 10 years ago you would need an first world air force to take out an oil refinery in the centre of a country.
*or in this case, lent by Iran. It’s still most likely no more high-tech than an commercial drone.
This is exactly why we should have continued the mandatory drone registration system.
These are military drones Jeff. I don’t think this attack was done by DJI Mavics.
From the article:
Houthi rebels have been using drones in combat since the start of the Saudi-led war. The first appeared to be off-the-shelf, hobby-kit-style drones, but later versions have been nearly identical to Iranian models. Tehran denies supplying the rebels with weapons, but the west and Gulf Arab nations say it does.
The rebels have flown drones into the radar arrays of Saudi Arabia’s Patriot missile batteries, according to Conflict Armament Research, disabling them and allowing them to fire ballistic missiles into the kingdom unchallenged.
They launched drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia’s crucial east-west pipeline in May as tensions heightened between Iran and the US.
Houthi drones also struck the Shaybah oil field in August. The field produces 1m barrels of crude a day near the Saudi border with the United Arab Emirates.
UN investigators have suggested that the rebels’ new UAV-X drone may have a range of up to 930 miles (1,500km), meaning they would be able to reach Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Wow, I had no idea they had gone to such expensive, high level drones. You’re right, I figured they were the $5,000 off-the shelf drones everyone can buy who has the money. Those can carry a decent payload.
X-UAV UAVs are china UAVs developed by Tian-Jie-Li Model Co., Ltd. (X-UAV, 天捷力航模有限公司) in Liyang. Originally a model airplane manufacturer, X-UAV has recently expanded its business by venturing into UAV arena, based on its extensive experience on model airplanes. Most of its UAV products are aimed to the niche market of low-cost training UAVs in preparation for more advanced and costly UAVs.
These are sophisticated for an insurgency operated out of desert camps and caves, but its not anything more high tech than can be bought online.
https://thearabweekly.com/houthi-attacks-signal-new-chapter-drone-warfare
Who could have foreseen that by mainstreaming drone attacks the US might influence other actors? I mean, really, this is one of those genie out of the bottle things. Once people are aware of how much you can do with relatively cheap tech, which the USA ballyhoos and flaunts, and realize that they can get sufficient tech relatively easily to do the same thing, this is exactly what you will get.
Of course, my sympathy for the Saudis is pretty much nil, but I foresee more and more of these sorts of attacks in all sorts of places…
Bolton is probably jumping up and down saying “I told you so!”
Trump will probably hire him back next week.