Milk_Sheikh

YYMV on how much credence you want to put into this, but multiple MENA Telegram channels I track offered this context:

The ‘tribal gathering’ angle is corroborated by this from 2019, but tbh it’s a news site solely about Yemen… written in English, ergo for an international audience.

Like another lemming said, if this was Houthi rebels - who have endured a decade plus of Saudi air strikes - why gather so many, out in the wide open?

Absolutely. My best learning experiences in life - both collaborative like mentoring/educational setting, or competitive like sports - have been when I was massively outclassed. Because if you put aside your lizard-brain feelings of being less than or inferior and listen/observe, you can see how it’s working for them and understand what it is you are/aren’t doing or do/don’t know.

Observe. Ask. Understand. Decide… and Review.

But humility is understated. It doesn’t sell on TV, it doesn’t captivate a crowd or rally the masses. “I don’t have the answer, but let’s find out” is honest but doesn’t have the same pull as “the problem is clear, and I know the solution”

And all he had to do was shut up, and take credit for the federal apparatchik doing all the work for him with COVID. Blather at a press conference to his followers to stay home and ‘beat the China virus so America stays strong’ - and then play golf. Push on industry and suppliers to build ventilators, hospital capacity, and facilitate lockdowns and remote school/work.

Imagine if instead of nearly a million direct deaths, we had a mortality similar to Europe - better even as we bought our way to the front of the vaccine line. An actual ‘America first’ in recovery from COVID and the economic slowdown, instead of fumbling the ball so hard in his fourth year and making Biden president.

How anyone thought that he would be the right choice to manage any crisis, let alone economic woes is dumbfounding. The ‘smartest person’ in every room he enters, he’s incapable of anyone else to having the right answer.

Who will win?

• 500 newly purged Red Army conscripts?
• Or one Lutheran farmboy and his Mosin

All of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in less than 100 days, an average of five per day at a time of year with very few daylight hours… Häyhä never discussed it publicly, but his own private memoir, discovered in 2017, states a number. He begins by stating that "this is his sin list", and estimates the total number he shot to be around 500.

FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

I will bulk purchase grey-market bootleg toner from shady overseas websites before I go back to a inkjet…

Manchin glazing Trump at his 2024 inauguration speaks words, even without his problematic voting record on immigration, the border wall, or routinely blocking the Democratic agenda - to me runs beyond the ‘sensible silent majority’ centrism tropes, and veers to bedfellows of fascism:

I also extend my congratulations to [President Trump on his victory. He is our President, and I am committed to supporting him in moving this country forward…

As we reflect on this election, one lesson stands out clearly: The candidate who appeals to the sensible majority of Americans – the center – wins… In this 2024 election, Trump was again the candidate better able to connect with the concerns of the sensible majority – prioritizing the economy, securing our borders, and responding to the core needs of working Americans.

1. Astoundingly stupid to leave super valuable attack/multirole helicopters out in an open field, after years of HIMARS gobbling up anything worthwhile in range. Keep doing Russian things Russia

2. Those are fuuuuuuucked. I doubt they’ll be able to even pull a single spare part off these, those tungsten penetrators do some work. There’s a (SFW) video of a vatnik who’d been assigned to repair a KAMAZ after being HIMARS’d and he was cussing out his commander lmao

“Look at this shit, everything is fucked… it pierced the turbine, holes in solid cast iron fuck. “Restore” are you joking, there’s nothing to “restore”.

Hardly. How about letting ‘moderate’ reactionaries stay in your club?

Manchin wasn’t ejected from the caucus despite his numerous blocking votes and hostage holding, but they did cut off party fund disbursements . Never kicked out of the party, despite him leaning into Trump.

Sinema wasn’t ejected, but they did cut her off party funds after 2019. But never threw her out of the party either.

A Nazi sit down at a table with 10 others, and nobody leaves. How many Nazis are now sat at the table?

The Democrats should whip their members harder instead of giving members ‘outs’ that makes the party as whole look uncommitted - Pelosi managed to do it for years, even with those ‘pesky progressives’.

Use the billion dollars of DNC leverage and lean on them - just like Elon’s unlimited money has openly threatened to primary anyone “disloyal” on the right.

As a lurker who ends up rubbing shoulders with right wing culture spaces, I have to disagree. The right has heresy tests for their politicians, the left tests for their voters. However the left expects competency in government (because they actually believe in it) and will sacrifice ideals or policies, while the right can afford the luxury of rejecting good governance because they’re expressly transactional when it comes to politics.

Rightwing voters are willing to cut off their nose in spite and become single issue voters - and it works for them. Pro-life or you’re dead to them. Pro-gun or you’re dead to them. Non-Christian? Dead. They get the political rhetoric and efforts they demand, which has left them severely ripe for opportunist political grifters who say whatever gets them access power. Like the MAGAs who build nothing, but hand out bones to voting blocs. Abortion overturned. No new gun laws. Ten Commandments in school and state houses. “Hurting the right people”. Migrants deported. Culture wars.

Or in the more extreme examples, they’ll just outright co-opt the structures of power and governance to fit the voters whims. It’s why we have the political maximalist lobbying NRA of today, instead of the humbler sportsman’s advocacy group of yesteryear. Or Trump.

"The president does not have unilateral authority to shut down an expenditure, or instrumentalities funded by Congress, without the authorization of Congress."

The Korean politicians literally put their lives on the line, and called the coup’s bluff by doing so. Posting on Twitter ‘man, Congress outta do something about that Doge’ when he is a Congressional leader while kicking the issue to the courts to ‘work it out’ is political theatre. Stand up, or step off Chuck.

If lawmakers don’t challenge DOGE, by passing new laws or going to court, they risk losing the powers Congress has held for two and a half centuries. Driesen and other legal experts said judges might consider the lack of congressional opposition as they decide cases on this question.

I said leadership, because yes the individual politicians do not have the ability to whip votes in Congress or create a cross-party platform. That Jeffries’, Schumer’s, and the DNC’s job. That’s who I’m mad at for refusing to recognize the new meta that Trump has tapped into - populist messaging.

People have been failed by late stage capitalism, and are mad about seeing their children have fewer chances in life and less hope, or that the lifestyle their parents were able to achieve is now a fantasy for many. They may not recognize the why, but they are pissed about it. Trump peddles easy to consume lies that offer no real solution to the problem, call him out and provide a real alternative, not more milquetoast centrism subservient to Wall Street. Voters want change and a new social contract. Become the party they want to vote for, instead of crafting districts to meet the DNC’s stance.