Modern Conservatives are idiots. They have hitched their wagon, to a movement, whose aim and goal is to reduce them to that of an indentured servant. An income insufficient to sustain a decent standard of living, no health care or retirement security, that they can work themselves to death during their useful years and expire when they are no longer able to work.
And for that, they have been given the pleasure of owning the libs, and flipping a finger to woke and DEI.
A system spawns the types of leaders that fit the system dynamics. We have a "celebrity performer" two-party presidential model featuring a star and his supporting cast. The incumbents, right down the line, fit the bill perfectly.
Until we get past a system that has shown its flaws numerous times in the past 230+ years, one should not expect anything better. No amount of founding fathers quotes will fix this. It will require developing a future state for an effective government. My suggestion has been that we need to move to a more devolved and localized government structure.
Let's start with replacing the president/vice-president with a 7-person non-partisan federal council directly elected regionally. Regional healthcare cooperatives supporting and running "Medicare for all that want it" should also be on the todo list.
Yes, political candidates, as in any other field, should have to pass muster, the same as in any other field, for their activities and influence are greater than most. Is that unconstitutional? I don't think so.
Silly me. I always thought that there was an "Election Commission" that was supposed to attend to this matter, and that the FBI and other non-governmental agencies were supposed to investigate candidates for higher office.
At any rate, I never thought that Donald Trump should have been anywhere near any public office, and wish that I had known better than to completely trust our elective system.
The thing is that T's electorate, 77.3M of 'em, was, correction: IS:
a. too hateful toward "The Others." Hate is their crack.
b. too self-absorbed/self-involved/self-supremed
c. too uncritical, never trained to Think
d. too easily finessed by a Fat, Loudmouthed Kiddie/Woman/Wife Rapist
They failed to see that they, the "Lower and fake Middle classes" of America, were T's real target.
In the same way that Hitler blamed the duped Germans for Germany's defeat/destruction, T has set up majority [i.e., White] Americans for residence [forever] in the inner ring of hell. The call was coming from inside the house.
Never-ending BOHICA. [meaning: Bend Over Here It Comes Again]
VOTE or be fleeced. #Send T's idiot sons to Kharg Island.
These people Trump, Reagan , Clarence Thomas all pursue the agenda of destruction.
They all are appointed to or elected to offices to serve the public.
They all have been self serving , arrogant individuals who live for the power they brandish against that which is best for the Americans they are supposed to be serving. Their corrupt approaches to power come naturally to them .
They show no qualms with their decisions to hurt the people. In fact it feeds their sense of power.
This administration has perfected corruption to achieve their malicious intent.
We, who suffer from their malevolence , must oppose them mightily.
We do , in fact, have the numbers to remove these individuals and their sycophants.
Check now to make sure you are registered to vote .
Follow the people who recognize this corruption and are attempting to oppose it .
President Trump’s April 1st speech had two statements which had a great deal of information that the press has totally ignored. The statements prove my analysis that Iran was not an imminent threat, but was a target of opportunity. It also may provide a possible solution to controlling the 900 pounds of 60% highly enriched uranium. It only takes minimum analysis to point out this valuable information.
“The nuclear sites that we obliterated with the B-2 bombers have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust, and we have it under intense satellite surveillance and control.”
“If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards; they have none.”
The first point of taking months to get access to the material is totally inconsistent with Trumps claim that Iran was two weeks away from having a nuclear warhead. If it requires months to just gain access to the 60% highly enriched uranium then it is not possible to put a weapon together in 2 weeks. It may be possible that the two week reference was to where Iran was before the B-2 strikes in June 2025, but it was not where Iran was on February 28th.
Even this months estimate could have been greatly extended because the US could re-strike the target if Iran ever tried to extract this material from the heavily damaged facilities. If these bunkers and deep undergrounds are as heavily damaged as Trump has proclaimed, then the US can not use Special Forces to get access to this uranium stockpile. Special Forces train to take intact facilities, not ones that have extensive debris blocking entrances. They know how to go through a 3 foot thick blast door but they would have no way of rapidly getting through 50-100 feet of boulders and other debris.
The only forces that can remove this obstruction are the troops who constructed the facility. They would have the special engineering equipment and knowhow to do this mission. But this engineering force would be extremely vulnerable to any US re-strike. They use all non-armored vehicles that could be easily destroyed by cruise missiles or 500 pound bombs. Israel could even do this mission of stopping any effort to clear the debris. Iran can only conduct this removal mission with US and Israeli approval.
The solution is Chernobyl.
If the 60% highly enriched uranium can be left safely buried, then that is what should be done. The reactor meltdown at Chernobyl was contained by building a sarcophagus around the damaged reactor. This can be done in two ways in Iran. Without Iran’s cooperation, it would require multiple re-strikes against debris removal crews. With Iran’s cooperation, it would be add debris to the pile that would make it that much more difficult for Iran to ever try to clear the debris. The site would have to have extensive ground monitoring to identify any attempt to gain access to the uranium. Drones and satellite surveillance would be used for long range perimeter monitoring.
I am not a nuclear physicist but I was a Strategic Analyst. I do not know for sure if the 60% highly enriched uranium can be safely buried. This is an essential question that the IAEA needs to answer. Given that this is highly enriched uranium and some of the canisters could have been damaged in the US attack, it is possible that this material could act as its own nuclear reactor. A nuclear pile without any control or cooling system could get extremely hot and cause a total meltdown. This could be a China Syndrome or Chernobyl times 10. This concern needs to checked out. If the 60% highly enriched uranium cannot be safely buried, then Iran would have a powerful incentive to make a deal with the US for a joint recovery effort and removal of the material from Iran. If Iran refuses to make this deal, they could face a nuclear disaster many times that of Chernobyl. If Iran had a nuclear meltdown that reached underground water, it could produce a highly radioactive nuclear steam cloud that could contaminate most of Iran and the Gulf region. Given that, I believe we have the solution to a deal.
I've been reading Ibram X. Kendi's new book, "Chain of Ideas", in which he mentions how every dictator inflicting himself upon the world today was preceded by some billionaire-funded media outlet pouring out racist "Great Replacement" propaganda. This is a coordinated strategy of delude, divide, and enslave that corporate capitalism requires to achieve total colonization of the Earth. The good news is that when then people realize what's happening, they unite and cast them out of power, as in Brazil and now Hungary.
And how can this be so clear and yet not enough to move republican lawmakers ton come out from under their toxic rocks and Jin those thinkers who “know” without doubt where this is going?
Of course, history (and perhaps their grandchildren) will judge them harshly (perhaps even the legal system), but that still leads to destruction of truth, justice, and the American way.
Too many words, little action. November is much too far away to “hope” things away
Good concise summary, Thom. When you can somehow make time, pls do a post on Brett(black face, umteen women who tried to witness to FBI) Kavanaugh. :-)
“This is not conservativism, this new “one man above all” ideology that drives today’s GOP. It’s raw, naked evil. And it’s about damn time that Democrats and Americans of good will begin to call it out for what it is.” I.e., a vote for any Repugnican running for any office anywhere is a vote for POSOTUS, thus a vote to destroy America. Griping about procedural abuses utterly and fatally misses the point. Powerful Democrats who supported Andrew Cuomo of Zorhan Mamdani now favor Janet Mills over Graham Platner. It’s about damn time Democrats and Americans of good will begin to call it out for what it is.
One thing in Thom's post today that stands out is how Americans use terminology that they do not understand and characterize it in "ism" extremes. Most post-depression dads like Thom's and mine had a realistic view of conservatism. Conservatives temper change with caution in order to avoid unintended negative consequences, such as a global economic system meltdown. In contrast to conservatism is liberalism. Liberals are open to exploring alternatives as a way of making the world a better place.
While to the average American these two isms seem diametrically opposed, both are essential to progress. Research is constantly testing alternative solutions to problems, be they diseases like polio or technological breakthroughs that make life easier and less stressful, like telephones or automobiles.
But what if the cure for one disease triggers unintended negative consequences such as autism, blindness, deafness, hypertension, etc.? That is why we have an FDA that requires lots of testing before allowing physicians to deploy new medications or medical procedures. It is also why there is a Center for Disease Control, to monitor long-term health changes that might discover an overlooked negative consequence of some medication or medical procedure currently in use.
Thus, for those of us in scientific careers, one must be both liberal and conservative, or what we are doing is just reckless putzing. Likewise, when it comes to public policy, legislators and government executives should be open to change, but cautious about implementing change that could be harmful. That is why we have two parties - to force changes in public policy and procedures to be open to improvements, like computers, but cautions in how and where they are applied. However, when political parties become isms, the resulting tension is nicely reflected in our current legislature. There is little change, and when change does happen, it is often positive for one group and negative for another because each ism ignores the concerns of the other.
Trump started deporting all illegal aliens, and now we have nobody to harvest our crops. We recklessly invaded a country a continent away, and now we have no fossile fuels to produce fertilizer to grow new crops, even if we had people to harvest them, which we do not. Worse, the price of everything is going up because we need scarce fossil fuels to bring crops to market. "How dumb is that?" as Jay Leno used to chide.
This whole “help your local billionaire” movement is about the morbidly rich both holding on to their wealth and their control over corporations that support and supply wars, pollute our air, water, and soil and use the working public as their personal lackeys and tools.
This economic system is built around them and what increases their wealth exponentially.
We now live within a system that controls majority of the population while at the same time has eliminated our ability to freely take care of ourselves.
It’s a system of economics and laws that support their way of living while at the same time has systematically bought out and dismantled local businesses, ranches, farms, waterways, and cordoning off property so that there is no longer land where we can live without trespassing or paying rents.
They want and need isolation from the hoards that make both their lives and lifestyles possible, but, at the same time, they want to remain in control of the vast conglomerates and corporations that now necessarily supply us and employ us and defy and avoid any attempt by the vast majority of the population to demand they pay their fair share of taxes. Taxes that help pay for the system of government that keeps all of us, even them, running smoothly. All because it interferes with their accumulation of wealth and dares to regulate just how much they can destroy our planet.
The means and just how fast they have come to control the lives of the majority and how they obtain power over our government and our collective livelihood is what this movement is all about.
We have been at war with millionaires who then became billionaires and now trillionaires since the industrial revolution. They syphon riches from the majority by controlling our livelihoods and controlling prices.
They manipulate the economic system by buying politicians who promise to promote laws that benefit and protect the lifestyle of the rich and famous. This, it seems, is the price they deem is fair for the use of their technology and the so called benefits of this modern society they have constructed off of and from our hard work that runs their companies.
Modern Conservatives are idiots. They have hitched their wagon, to a movement, whose aim and goal is to reduce them to that of an indentured servant. An income insufficient to sustain a decent standard of living, no health care or retirement security, that they can work themselves to death during their useful years and expire when they are no longer able to work.
And for that, they have been given the pleasure of owning the libs, and flipping a finger to woke and DEI.
That's about the size of it.
A system spawns the types of leaders that fit the system dynamics. We have a "celebrity performer" two-party presidential model featuring a star and his supporting cast. The incumbents, right down the line, fit the bill perfectly.
Until we get past a system that has shown its flaws numerous times in the past 230+ years, one should not expect anything better. No amount of founding fathers quotes will fix this. It will require developing a future state for an effective government. My suggestion has been that we need to move to a more devolved and localized government structure.
Let's start with replacing the president/vice-president with a 7-person non-partisan federal council directly elected regionally. Regional healthcare cooperatives supporting and running "Medicare for all that want it" should also be on the todo list.
Lets start by getting rid of the tyrant.
If security agencies can require that candidates pass written tests, background checks, lie detectors, same for candidates for office.
Yes, political candidates, as in any other field, should have to pass muster, the same as in any other field, for their activities and influence are greater than most. Is that unconstitutional? I don't think so.
Silly me. I always thought that there was an "Election Commission" that was supposed to attend to this matter, and that the FBI and other non-governmental agencies were supposed to investigate candidates for higher office.
At any rate, I never thought that Donald Trump should have been anywhere near any public office, and wish that I had known better than to completely trust our elective system.
The thing is that T's electorate, 77.3M of 'em, was, correction: IS:
a. too hateful toward "The Others." Hate is their crack.
b. too self-absorbed/self-involved/self-supremed
c. too uncritical, never trained to Think
d. too easily finessed by a Fat, Loudmouthed Kiddie/Woman/Wife Rapist
They failed to see that they, the "Lower and fake Middle classes" of America, were T's real target.
In the same way that Hitler blamed the duped Germans for Germany's defeat/destruction, T has set up majority [i.e., White] Americans for residence [forever] in the inner ring of hell. The call was coming from inside the house.
Never-ending BOHICA. [meaning: Bend Over Here It Comes Again]
VOTE or be fleeced. #Send T's idiot sons to Kharg Island.
These people Trump, Reagan , Clarence Thomas all pursue the agenda of destruction.
They all are appointed to or elected to offices to serve the public.
They all have been self serving , arrogant individuals who live for the power they brandish against that which is best for the Americans they are supposed to be serving. Their corrupt approaches to power come naturally to them .
They show no qualms with their decisions to hurt the people. In fact it feeds their sense of power.
This administration has perfected corruption to achieve their malicious intent.
We, who suffer from their malevolence , must oppose them mightily.
We do , in fact, have the numbers to remove these individuals and their sycophants.
Check now to make sure you are registered to vote .
Follow the people who recognize this corruption and are attempting to oppose it .
Iran was not an Imminent Threat
Possible Solution
Retired Analyst Mike
Apr 19, 2026
President Trump’s April 1st speech had two statements which had a great deal of information that the press has totally ignored. The statements prove my analysis that Iran was not an imminent threat, but was a target of opportunity. It also may provide a possible solution to controlling the 900 pounds of 60% highly enriched uranium. It only takes minimum analysis to point out this valuable information.
“The nuclear sites that we obliterated with the B-2 bombers have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust, and we have it under intense satellite surveillance and control.”
“If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards; they have none.”
The first point of taking months to get access to the material is totally inconsistent with Trumps claim that Iran was two weeks away from having a nuclear warhead. If it requires months to just gain access to the 60% highly enriched uranium then it is not possible to put a weapon together in 2 weeks. It may be possible that the two week reference was to where Iran was before the B-2 strikes in June 2025, but it was not where Iran was on February 28th.
Even this months estimate could have been greatly extended because the US could re-strike the target if Iran ever tried to extract this material from the heavily damaged facilities. If these bunkers and deep undergrounds are as heavily damaged as Trump has proclaimed, then the US can not use Special Forces to get access to this uranium stockpile. Special Forces train to take intact facilities, not ones that have extensive debris blocking entrances. They know how to go through a 3 foot thick blast door but they would have no way of rapidly getting through 50-100 feet of boulders and other debris.
The only forces that can remove this obstruction are the troops who constructed the facility. They would have the special engineering equipment and knowhow to do this mission. But this engineering force would be extremely vulnerable to any US re-strike. They use all non-armored vehicles that could be easily destroyed by cruise missiles or 500 pound bombs. Israel could even do this mission of stopping any effort to clear the debris. Iran can only conduct this removal mission with US and Israeli approval.
The solution is Chernobyl.
If the 60% highly enriched uranium can be left safely buried, then that is what should be done. The reactor meltdown at Chernobyl was contained by building a sarcophagus around the damaged reactor. This can be done in two ways in Iran. Without Iran’s cooperation, it would require multiple re-strikes against debris removal crews. With Iran’s cooperation, it would be add debris to the pile that would make it that much more difficult for Iran to ever try to clear the debris. The site would have to have extensive ground monitoring to identify any attempt to gain access to the uranium. Drones and satellite surveillance would be used for long range perimeter monitoring.
I am not a nuclear physicist but I was a Strategic Analyst. I do not know for sure if the 60% highly enriched uranium can be safely buried. This is an essential question that the IAEA needs to answer. Given that this is highly enriched uranium and some of the canisters could have been damaged in the US attack, it is possible that this material could act as its own nuclear reactor. A nuclear pile without any control or cooling system could get extremely hot and cause a total meltdown. This could be a China Syndrome or Chernobyl times 10. This concern needs to checked out. If the 60% highly enriched uranium cannot be safely buried, then Iran would have a powerful incentive to make a deal with the US for a joint recovery effort and removal of the material from Iran. If Iran refuses to make this deal, they could face a nuclear disaster many times that of Chernobyl. If Iran had a nuclear meltdown that reached underground water, it could produce a highly radioactive nuclear steam cloud that could contaminate most of Iran and the Gulf region. Given that, I believe we have the solution to a deal.
Interesting questions.
I've been reading Ibram X. Kendi's new book, "Chain of Ideas", in which he mentions how every dictator inflicting himself upon the world today was preceded by some billionaire-funded media outlet pouring out racist "Great Replacement" propaganda. This is a coordinated strategy of delude, divide, and enslave that corporate capitalism requires to achieve total colonization of the Earth. The good news is that when then people realize what's happening, they unite and cast them out of power, as in Brazil and now Hungary.
And how can this be so clear and yet not enough to move republican lawmakers ton come out from under their toxic rocks and Jin those thinkers who “know” without doubt where this is going?
Of course, history (and perhaps their grandchildren) will judge them harshly (perhaps even the legal system), but that still leads to destruction of truth, justice, and the American way.
Too many words, little action. November is much too far away to “hope” things away
OHMY!!!
Good concise summary, Thom. When you can somehow make time, pls do a post on Brett(black face, umteen women who tried to witness to FBI) Kavanaugh. :-)
“This is not conservativism, this new “one man above all” ideology that drives today’s GOP. It’s raw, naked evil. And it’s about damn time that Democrats and Americans of good will begin to call it out for what it is.” I.e., a vote for any Repugnican running for any office anywhere is a vote for POSOTUS, thus a vote to destroy America. Griping about procedural abuses utterly and fatally misses the point. Powerful Democrats who supported Andrew Cuomo of Zorhan Mamdani now favor Janet Mills over Graham Platner. It’s about damn time Democrats and Americans of good will begin to call it out for what it is.
What does POSOTUS mean?
“POSOTUS” is my contraction of POTUS (President Of The United States) and POS (which I’ll leave to your imagination, but starts with “Piece”).
POS. Lol.
One thing in Thom's post today that stands out is how Americans use terminology that they do not understand and characterize it in "ism" extremes. Most post-depression dads like Thom's and mine had a realistic view of conservatism. Conservatives temper change with caution in order to avoid unintended negative consequences, such as a global economic system meltdown. In contrast to conservatism is liberalism. Liberals are open to exploring alternatives as a way of making the world a better place.
While to the average American these two isms seem diametrically opposed, both are essential to progress. Research is constantly testing alternative solutions to problems, be they diseases like polio or technological breakthroughs that make life easier and less stressful, like telephones or automobiles.
But what if the cure for one disease triggers unintended negative consequences such as autism, blindness, deafness, hypertension, etc.? That is why we have an FDA that requires lots of testing before allowing physicians to deploy new medications or medical procedures. It is also why there is a Center for Disease Control, to monitor long-term health changes that might discover an overlooked negative consequence of some medication or medical procedure currently in use.
Thus, for those of us in scientific careers, one must be both liberal and conservative, or what we are doing is just reckless putzing. Likewise, when it comes to public policy, legislators and government executives should be open to change, but cautious about implementing change that could be harmful. That is why we have two parties - to force changes in public policy and procedures to be open to improvements, like computers, but cautions in how and where they are applied. However, when political parties become isms, the resulting tension is nicely reflected in our current legislature. There is little change, and when change does happen, it is often positive for one group and negative for another because each ism ignores the concerns of the other.
Trump started deporting all illegal aliens, and now we have nobody to harvest our crops. We recklessly invaded a country a continent away, and now we have no fossile fuels to produce fertilizer to grow new crops, even if we had people to harvest them, which we do not. Worse, the price of everything is going up because we need scarce fossil fuels to bring crops to market. "How dumb is that?" as Jay Leno used to chide.
This whole “help your local billionaire” movement is about the morbidly rich both holding on to their wealth and their control over corporations that support and supply wars, pollute our air, water, and soil and use the working public as their personal lackeys and tools.
This economic system is built around them and what increases their wealth exponentially.
We now live within a system that controls majority of the population while at the same time has eliminated our ability to freely take care of ourselves.
It’s a system of economics and laws that support their way of living while at the same time has systematically bought out and dismantled local businesses, ranches, farms, waterways, and cordoning off property so that there is no longer land where we can live without trespassing or paying rents.
They want and need isolation from the hoards that make both their lives and lifestyles possible, but, at the same time, they want to remain in control of the vast conglomerates and corporations that now necessarily supply us and employ us and defy and avoid any attempt by the vast majority of the population to demand they pay their fair share of taxes. Taxes that help pay for the system of government that keeps all of us, even them, running smoothly. All because it interferes with their accumulation of wealth and dares to regulate just how much they can destroy our planet.
The means and just how fast they have come to control the lives of the majority and how they obtain power over our government and our collective livelihood is what this movement is all about.
We have been at war with millionaires who then became billionaires and now trillionaires since the industrial revolution. They syphon riches from the majority by controlling our livelihoods and controlling prices.
They manipulate the economic system by buying politicians who promise to promote laws that benefit and protect the lifestyle of the rich and famous. This, it seems, is the price they deem is fair for the use of their technology and the so called benefits of this modern society they have constructed off of and from our hard work that runs their companies.
Man...you've summarized my 73 years in rural Iowa.
Loud and clear! Lived it!
1 quick question, a bit off topic: Islamabad?