Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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nycfan said:
I could care less about the well-being of the cartels but am concerned about launching attacks inside the sovereign borders of our allies in the region without their consent or cooperation. What if Mexico or Canada decides to start bombing gun manufacturers in the United States because we do little to nothing to stop them from supplying weapons to the cartels? Sure, that seems unlikely but using force in the region without cooperation from the governments of the applicable countries has typically been a bad approach to U.S. foreign policy.
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How someone as smart as that poster appears to think he is doesn’t understand this is bewildering.
 
nycfan said:
I could care less about the well-being of the cartels but am concerned about launching attacks inside the sovereign borders of our allies in the region without their consent or cooperation.
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Which can't happen, because the cartels don't just hang out in large corporate campuses with adequate signage.

The drug cartels are successful and hard to combat precisely because they are embedded within Mexican society. In some places, the cartel "headquarters" is the local police station.

There is no way to target cartels with drone strikes in such a way that would avoid destroying assets of the Mexican government, or assets of Mexican nationals who aren't involved with the cartels at all.
 
superrific said:
The proper response: cool, but please do not drone strike into territory controlled by other countries, especially our allies.
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Well, if we do it over the objections of the Mexican gov't, that gives the gov't some deniability that they probably wouldn't mind having.

I have mixed feelings about this. They are truly awful people, and might as well be labelled terrorists IMO, but it seems obvious there are going to be repurcussions on US soil.
 
superrific said:
There is no way to target cartels with drone strikes in such a way that would avoid destroying assets of the Mexican government, or assets of Mexican nationals who aren't involved with the cartels at all.
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I dunno, a lot of those guys have pretty large ranches, and I'm sure the caches aren't being stored at the local police station
 
TarSpiel said:
I dunno, a lot of those guys have pretty large ranches, and I'm sure the caches aren't being stored at the local police station
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I'm not sure of that at all. In fact, I'd be surprised if they weren't.

These cartels are no fucking joke. I realized years ago just how serious they were when I read an article about how they got into the oil business. They literally put a spike into one of the oil pipelines, drove truck and truck into the cave where they spiked it until they filled a fucking oil tanker, and then they sent the tanker to Louisiana to sell the oil. That is a crazy operation. Like military grade logistics.

If they are just sitting on large ranches where they store their stuff, the Mexicans would have defeated them long ago.
 
superrific said:
I'm not sure of that at all. In fact, I'd be surprised if they weren't.

These cartels are no fucking joke. I realized years ago just how serious they were when I read an article about how they got into the oil business. They literally put a spike into one of the oil pipelines, drove truck and truck into the cave where they spiked it until they filled a fucking oil tanker, and then they sent the tanker to Louisiana to sell the oil. That is a crazy operation. Like military grade logistics.

If they are just sitting on large ranches where they store their stuff, the Mexicans would have defeated them long ago.
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Well, I don't know. I just assumed they'd be stored in compounds closer to where they were produced, and closer to trade routes, but I really have no idea, you could be right.

And yea, they are very evil people, and very smart. If we start droning them, it's very easy for me to imagine large-scale reprisals on US soil.
 
Duke Mu said:
Trump's EO ends US democracy:

Trump signs order declaring only president and AG can interpret US law for executive branch

Anyone? Bueller?
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No, the reaction to that is overdone. It signals a bad intention but it's not the end of democracy or anything of the sort. And it's just a fucking executive order. It has no binding force at all. And it's impossible for it to do that, because agencies have to construe American law in normal course and they aren't all going to be calling Pam Bondi to get an interpretation.

The most threatening part is:

"consult with independent regulatory agency chairmen and adjust such agencies’ apportionments by activity, function, project, or object, as necessary and appropriate, to advance the President’s policies and priorities. Such adjustments to apportionments may prohibit independent regulatory agencies from expending appropriations on particular activities, functions, projects, or objects, so long as such restrictions are consistent with law. "

And that's just a subset of the impoundment power they are already claiming. If impoundment is allowed to happen, we're fucked anyway. But I have my doubts the Supreme Court will go along with this. As Quinta Jurecic says on a podcast/transcript already posted, Roberts makes decisions about agency and executive power based on how rude the people are. And this is fucking rude.

Do you remember how hard Kav fought to get his coveted Supreme Court seat? I don't that's a guy who is going to just let Trump take all of his power. The one constant theme from the Trump court has been arrogation of power to itself. That's the unifying theme across ALL the bullshit. They love power. I don't think they are just going to hand it over to Trump and call it a good life.
 
TarSpiel said:
Well, I don't know. I just assumed they'd be stored in compounds closer to where they were produced, and closer to trade routes, but I really have no idea, you could be right.

And yea, they are very evil people, and very smart. If we start droning them, it's very easy for me to imagine large-scale reprisals on US soil.
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Obviously I don't have any actual knowledge. But remember: this stuff doesn't require a lot of volume. A 2mg dose (according to the news, about the volume of 5 grains of salt) can kill an adult. Let's assume 1mg is an average dose. That means 1 kg is 1000 doses. 10kg is 1M doses. 100kg -- i.e. a single filled garbage can -- would be 1B doses and enough supply to last years.

This isn't weed. You don't need caves to store the stuff. The trunks of three cars is probably sufficient.
 
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