one army
Not subtle but I assume this means they are looking to completely eliminate Hezbollah.
CleverOleg
joined 2 years ago
I am wearing green, black, and orange today (those are the “opposite” colors i.e. on the other side of the color wheel of red, white and blue). I have my Cuba baseball cap I could wear but 99.9% of the people who would see it would think I’m being patriotic instead.
Swim lessons 4 days a week. It’s great in that it’s through the city so it’s very cheap… but getting kids to swim lessons every day after work means we get home, eat something, then go right to bed. Not really how I was hoping to spend the summer, but at least the kids really love getting in the pool. And a couple times we went for frozen yogurt after, and those have been some really nice times with them.
While it may be a bit more stressful doing it solo, I also suspect it will lead to some really great memories (like the one you shared)
Mine are too young. Right now I’m trying to make it just about the fireworks, kinda treating it like “firework day” because firework shows are genuinely fun. Honestly I feel like if neither you or your wife are patriotic the other 364 days, kids won’t really care about celebrating America. My parents are very conservative but weirdly not patriotic at all, so for us the 4th never felt like a big deal.
Maybe the most annoying trait among Americans is the absolute confidence they have in their knowledge of history without actually knowing a damn thing about history.
on a campaign that promises to maybe overturn the last 5-10% of whatever trump is up to in office.
Not even that much. The the big tax cuts were probably the worst thing Trump did legislatively in his first term. It was incredibly unpopular - even a majority of Republican voters at the time didn’t want it. As soon as Biden got sworn in, you never heard a peep from him or other Dems about repealing it ever.
It’s crazy that back in the first Trump admin, the whole thing about passing something through reconciliation was that it couldn’t add to the deficit. This bill just blows up the deficit (not that it really matters) and it’s just… ok?
lol I didn’t know it was just tents, but of course it is
There are nearly 3.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank. While I do not doubt it is the desire of the Zionist entity to ethnically cleanse and take over the entire West Bank - and they are very possibly planning it now - the logistics involved make it nearly impossible. While there may not be the same level of organized resistance in the West Bank compared to Gaza (I genuinely do not know this), the Entity has been unable to either hold significant ground in Gaza or expel the population. I just don’t see how it could practically be done.
That said, if the Entity actually does attempt to do this, I think the thesis that it is entering into a phase of fascism where it just moves from defeat to to defeat would be shown to be more correct. Unable to defeat the Resistance in Gaza, unable to defeat Hezbollah, unable to defeat Iran… so it moves on to try something else. But with every extension, the Entity just spreads itself more thin and makes it all the more vulnerable.
Biggest long term impacts:
‘- roughly 16 millions Americans will lose their healthcare
‘- massive expansion in terms of dollars and terror of state power against immigrants. I’ve been skeptical about efforts to terrorize, imprison, and deport immigrants due to the critical function they serve in the economy, but now…. I don’t know
‘- 200k federal employees will be permanently laid off (likely many are unionized, further weakening organized labor in the US)
‘- I’m not sure of the details on this one but I believe a large amount of federal land can now either be sold off or opened up for resource extraction
‘- the stats I have seen show that the average worker will be worse off by like $950 per year after this. Significant when you consider over half of Americans have something like $1,000 or less in savings right now. With the social spending cuts along with higher prices due to tariffs (not included in that number above), we are likely going to see serious mass immiseration. I believe this is genuinely an important time for the left in the US to get out there and talk with people. People are going to be in real hurt. We should try and help as best we can, but also people don’t want this bill (majority of Republicans are against it). It’s a naked giveaway to the rich on the backs of workers. Couple that with obvious fecklessness of the dems and all politicians support of the genocide in Gaza, and I think we approaching a time where people are more receptive to our message than ever.
Watching Justin Podur’s sit rep from July 5 with Laith Marouf. Laith is clearly a guy who “knows things” and talks to people on the ground in Lebanon and Syria.
According to Laith, it seems like much of the “quiet” we have seen from Hezbollah in recent months is due to them preparing for an invasion both from Syria and Israel. This would seem to track at least to me in why they didn’t get involved when Iran was attacking Israel. Hezbollah is fundamentally a defensive force, and their primary objective is to keep the Israelis (or others) out of Lebanon. It’s not just their mission, it’s how their capabilities were designed.
For what it’s worth, Laith is also very bullish on how Hezbollah would handle an invasion.