whatntarnation
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CURRENT EVENTS
- Thread starter nycfan
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https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/poli...ureau-of-labor-statistics-twitter-account-vis [paywall — no apparent gift link option]
“… E.J. Antoni, a 37-year-old economist for the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, posted the comments from approximately 2017 through 2020 under a series of usernames and display names. CNN verified that all of Antoni’s posts came from the same Twitter account and that the posts from the anonymous aliases shared strikingly similar biographical details as Antoni.
… Antoni also referred to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, as“Miss Piggy.” In February 2020, he retweeteda post titled “Advice For Women: How To Land a Great Guy,” which instructed women to “be in shape,” “grow your hair long,” “be sweet,” “learn to cook,” and “don’t be annoying.” The post concluded: “Angry feminists and simps will try to sabotage you in the comments. Don’t listen to them. Listen to me.”…”
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https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/poli...ureau-of-labor-statistics-twitter-account-vis [paywall — no apparent gift link option]
“… E.J. Antoni, a 37-year-old economist for the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, posted the comments from approximately 2017 through 2020 under a series of usernames and display names. CNN verified that all of Antoni’s posts came from the same Twitter account and that the posts from the anonymous aliases shared strikingly similar biographical details as Antoni.
… Antoni also referred to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, as“Miss Piggy.” In February 2020, he retweeteda post titled “Advice For Women: How To Land a Great Guy,” which instructed women to “be in shape,” “grow your hair long,” “be sweet,” “learn to cook,” and “don’t be annoying.” The post concluded: “Angry feminists and simps will try to sabotage you in the comments. Don’t listen to them. Listen to me.”…”
Because of the risk to military? Or the risk to our relationship with North Korea? I think the US / Congress need to know the story because it sounds like Trump is putting us in the risky situation in the first place without permission of appropriate Congress channels.
1moretimeagain
Iconic Member
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He was probably already a lock to be confirmed, but this can’t hurt.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/poli...ureau-of-labor-statistics-twitter-account-vis [paywall — no apparent gift link option]
“… E.J. Antoni, a 37-year-old economist for the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, posted the comments from approximately 2017 through 2020 under a series of usernames and display names. CNN verified that all of Antoni’s posts came from the same Twitter account and that the posts from the anonymous aliases shared strikingly similar biographical details as Antoni.
… Antoni also referred to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, as“Miss Piggy.” In February 2020, he retweeteda post titled “Advice For Women: How To Land a Great Guy,” which instructed women to “be in shape,” “grow your hair long,” “be sweet,” “learn to cook,” and “don’t be annoying.” The post concluded: “Angry feminists and simps will try to sabotage you in the comments. Don’t listen to them. Listen to me.”…”
First, the decision to publish isn't a clear-cut call. I recognize and support the bias of a journalistic enterprise to come down on the side of the public's right to know.
Balancing the public's right to know and espionage activities is a decades-old endeavor. We've been doing these types of sigint operations for 85 years - some of the operations that occurred in the 1950s are still classified. They are classified to protect both sources and methods and to allow us plausible deniability in diplomatic efforts with countries against which we are conducting active espionage.
While it was probably illegal that Congress wasn't informed contemporaneously, the story makes clear that Congress was informed by the Biden administration. Anyone in Congress or the IC who should have known about the incident already knew about it before the story came out.
It's unknown, but quite possible, that North Korea did not know who specifically conducted the operation. Now they do, and that can complicate our ability to conduct foreign affairs within the region.
LeoBloom
Exceptional Member
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What stage of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is this?
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“The leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea are not good men. They preside over brutal autocracies replete with secret police and prison camps. But they are, nevertheless, serious men, and they know an unserious man when they see one. For nearly a decade, they have taken Donald Trump’s measure, and they have clearly reached a conclusion: The president of the United States is not worthy of their respect.
… Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s maximum nepo baby, Kim Jong Un, gathered to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. (Putin’s Belarusian satrap, Alexander Lukashenko, was also on hand.) The American president was not invited: After all, what role did the United States play in defeating Japan and liberating Eurasia?
…
But the parade was worse than a mere snub. Putin, Xi, and Kim stood in solidarity while reviewing China’s military might only weeks after Putin came to Alaska and refused Trump’s pleas to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. The White House tried to spin that ill-advised summit into at least a draw between Putin and Trump, but when the Kremlin’s dictator shows up with no interest in negotiation, speaks first at a press conference, and then caps the day by declining a carefully planned lunch and flying home, that’s a humiliation, not an exchange of views.
Nor has Trump fared very well with the other two members of this cheery 21st-century incarnation of SPECTRE. In the midst of Trumpian chaos, Xi is adroitly positioning China as the new face of international stability and responsibility. He has even made a show of offering partnership to China’s rival and former enemy India: Chinese diplomats last month said that China stands with India against the American “bully” when Trump was, for some reason, trying to impose 50 percent tariffs on India….”
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“… America is adrift. It has no coherent foreign policy, no team of senior professionals managing its national defense and diplomacy, and a president who has little interest in the world beyond what it can offer him. Little wonder that the men who gathered in Beijing—three autocrats whose nations are collectively pointing many hundreds of nuclear weapons at the United States—feel free to act as if they don’t even think twice about Trump or the country he leads.“
ZenMode
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Feds intercept 1,300 barrels of meth precursor chemicals shipped from China to Mexico
Federal officials made a high-seas interception of hundreds of thousands of pounds of two different precursor chemicals that are used to make methamphetamine, a shipment they say came from China and was destined for the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
Jeanine Pirro, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, announced what officials called the largest ever bust of precursor chemicals being shipped to a foreign terrorist organization during a news conference in Pasadena, Texas, on Wednesday.
Federal officials made a high-seas interception of hundreds of thousands of pounds of two different precursor chemicals that are used to make methamphetamine, a shipment they say came from China and was destined for the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
Jeanine Pirro, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, announced what officials called the largest ever bust of precursor chemicals being shipped to a foreign terrorist organization during a news conference in Pasadena, Texas, on Wednesday.
Tom Nichols, the author of the Atlantic article, is a former Republican and long-time professor at the Naval War College. I regard that article as the definitive take on our current state of affairs by the bipartisan institutional foreign policy community. Pretty sobering how far we've fallen in seven months.
The only good news is, given that it's HUD, they'll figure out some way to screw up the service somehow.
superrific
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Again, why would you believe anything they say? It's all a lie. The two chemicals are both widely used in industry. Could they have been destined for meth labs? Maybe. But just this week, the administration sank a "drug ship" that was almost certainly not carrying drugs, but rather migrants. So why on earth would you ever give them the benefit of the doubt.
The administration's lies far outnumber their truths, and it isn't even close.
ZenMode
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I think it's pretty well established that a lot of the drugs that come into the US originate from Mexico. It seems completely reasonable that Mexico would get the chemicals from China.
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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But it is also completely reasonable that Mexico gets a lot of other stuff from China.
What happens when an administration lies all the time as a matter of course -- to the media, to the people, to the courts, to Congress, to allies, to everyone -- is that nobody believes them any more. It is to your infinite discredit that you continue to reflexively believe them.
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Trump to reinterpret 1987 missile treaty to sell heavy attack drones abroad
Exclusive: Trump to reinterpret 1987 missile treaty to sell heavy attack drones abroad
President Donald Trump is expected to unilaterally reinterpret a 38-year-old arms control treaty to sell sophisticated "Reaper" style and other advanced military drones abroad, according to a U.S. official and four people familiar with the plan.
“… By designating drones as aircraft like the F-16 rather than missile systems, the United States will sidestep the 35-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) agreement it signed in 1987, propelling drone sales to countries like UAE and in Eastern European nations that have struggled to get their hands on America's best unmanned aerial vehicles.
The new policy will allow General Atomics, Kratos (KTOS.O), opens new tab, and Anduril, which manufacture large drones, to have their products treated as "Foreign Military Sales" by the State Department, allowing them to be easily sold internationally, according to a U.S. official speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
… Under the current interpretation of the MTCR, the sale of many military drones is subject to a "strong presumption of denial" unless a compelling security reason is given and the buyer agrees to use the weapons in strict accordance with international law.…
The MTCR was originally meant to curb the sale of long-range missiles that can deliver weapons of mass destruction.
Though drones were invented many years later they were considered within the scope of the MTCR due to their ability to fly long distances and carry weapons.
U.S. drone manufacturers are facing stiff competition overseas, especially from Israeli, Chinese and Turkish rivals who often sell under lighter restrictions.…”
ZenMode
Inconceivable Member
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As with anything else, we generally have no idea who is/isn't lying. None of us has first-hand info on any of the events we hear about from the media. The media doesn't have first-hand info either, so all we have is deciding what seems more/less reasonable and more/less likely to be true.
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You could feel the low pressure in Georgia from all of the sucking up.
—> https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-...3?st=EaPBk1&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“… Trump also addressed Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai about a federal judge’s ruling this week on an antitrust case related to Google’s monopoly in search. The judge levied relatively light penalties and rejected the most significant measures sought by the Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit in 2020.
“You had a very good day yesterday,” Trump said. “Do you want to talk about that big day you had yesterday?”
“I’m glad it’s over,” Pichai said.
“Biden was the one who prosecuted that lawsuit,” Trump said. “You know that, right?”…”
