CapgrasDelusion

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Seriously. He doesn't need to spin. Spin is distorting the truth but keeping it plausible, if false. He will just brazenly lie, explicitly say America would be better off without certain judges and prosecutors (violating gag orders with no real consequences), his supporters will eat it up, some of them will try to harm these people, and he'll sit back and act surprised, disinterested, or flat out say they deserved it. We have seen it over and over.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

if Azerbaijan invades actual Armenia proper, then that's a different story.

The possibility of that happening is literally the linked article.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Always has been.

Internationally recognized, fine. The population was about 120,000. 100,000 fled to Armenia after the attack. I'm sure they care about international lines on a map.

Always has been is categorically false. Armenia has been a country for about a thousand years before the ones who drew the lines on your map.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago

The "Christians being persecuted" crowd only care about Target selling shirts with rainbows.

They were actually the first Christian nation in 301 AD/CE. Not that state religion is great, but it's an interesting history given they were sandwiched between the Romans and the Parthians at the time and were pretty much a football between the Romans and whoever was nextdoor throughout the entirety of the Roman empire. If they aligned with "nextdoor" the Romans often ignored them as long as they didn't allow armies from nextdoor through. And when the Romans had their own puppet king over there, well, bully for them.

Not much has changed. Now they're sandwiched between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Georgia, with Georgia being a Russian conduit at least militarily if not politically. And Turkey and Azerbaijan are effectively one and the same with Azerbaijian having a dash of Russian influence. That's not a great place to be if you're a tiny country served as an appetizer to the surrounding powers.

Anyway, welcome to my TED Talk.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

What could of possibly made Turkey fall in line as heavily as it has.

F16s.

https://www.reuters.com/world/turkey-will-back-swedens-nato-bid-if-us-keeps-promise-f-16-sale-erdogan-2023-09-26/

Which is yet another reason why the West will hang Armenia out to dry.

Turkey already endorsed a corridor between the two countries through the south of Armenia, immediately after the attack on Artsakh, literally 4 days, while 100,000 Armenians were fleeing.

https://www.reuters.com/world/azerbaijani-turkish-leaders-hold-talks-eye-forging-land-corridor-via-armenia-2023-09-25/

Why would Armenia open this corridor voluntarily? Azerbaijan already pinky swore Artsakh wouldn't be attacked. Erdogan knows how this will be solved, and it won't be pen and paper.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They also have many of the pipelines that send oil/gas from that region to Europe. Hence the hand wringing and platitudes from the West rather than actual help. Aliyev knows this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Gas_Corridor

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/why-volatile-south-caucasus-is-important-oil-gas-supplies-2023-09-22/

And when Armenia had the gall to even hint at trying to break from under Russia's thumb to the West, Aliyev got the ok from Russia to teach them a lesson.

https://www.reuters.com/world/armenia-us-military-exercise-kicks-off-near-yerevan-us-spokesperson-2023-09-11/

Azerbaijian took Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh 8 days later, in spite of a prior Russian security agreement to prevent exactly that.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but Armenians aren't muslims, they're majority Christian.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

If, for example, you have 5 Democrats who can’t go along with this, that means you now need 9 Republicans willing to put their own standing in the party at risk.

I think this is the main reason. Also, you don't become speaker just to be speaker. You do it to advance further, either to higher elected positions or, more likely, to lucrative party fundraising, consulting, speaking engagements, writing books, and/or private sector positions. In today's world no speaker who is elected with the help of Democrats has a future in the Republican party, anywhere. It's career suicide. Not just losing elected office. They will be blacklisted everywhere. It won't happen.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

It's definitely a serious push. But in true fashion, here's how it kicked off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXPzS71yx30

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Jordan would be a shit-show of massive proportions. Which is saying something given that it would have to beat out the current shit-show.

EDIT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/us/politics/scalise-jordan-house-speaker.html

Even though the votes on Thursday had clearly stacked up against Mr. Scalise, some of his allies were still surprised by his withdrawal announcement in a closed-door meeting. Several openly wept.

Congress being a circus shouldn't be funny, but holy shit I lost it at that one.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's really interesting, didn't know any of that. A little tongue in cheek here but... With all that in there at what point is your barn just your house in all but name?

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