I don’t want to be overly annoying with it because it also doesn’t matter all that much, but the Nazi Aryan stuff wasn’t really a belief that Germanic or Nordic people were “the Aryans.” They believed the Aryans were a real people who had existed, not mythological, and basically that modern people in Nordic and Germanic nations were sort of “fallen” descendants of those ancient people.

They had a sort of hierarchy that basically people of Nordic descent who had their idealized perfect Nordic features were placed at the top as “closest to Aryan ideal.” This is important because obviously not every Swede is 7ft tall, green eyed, blond hair, muscle bound. They were creating this “perfect” phenotype which excluded even many within the groups that ostensibly met their other criteria. At least as far as their birth place and perceived genetics went (traced through their parents/grandparents).

That’s the entire basis or “logic” insofar as there needed to be any logic beyond “We want to kill them and take their lands” for Nazism. The belief in a fallen great race of people. The belief that they were the descendants of this race. And the belief that through “cleansing” their gene pools they could resurrect that great race again one day. It’s sort of an implied “admission” of like “we and our recent ancestors were too close to the inferior races (Jews, Slavs, Roma, etc.) and our punishment is our current situation (humiliation of losing WWI and the Versailles agreement). If we throw off these inferior, lesser peoples and seek to cleanse our bloodlines we can rise again into the mighty Aryans.” Something like that.

I’m only pointing this out because there’s a reason many “non-Aryan” Germans and others from around the region were fine with Nazism directly opposing their existence. Even Hitler very clearly failed to meet the expectations set. The whole thing was less about who they were (though obviously that mattered. Those deemed not Aryan enough or refusing to get on board the project were condemned) and more about who they were going to be (again.) (In their minds anyway.)

It’s just worth noting because they care less about someone’s exact physical characteristics (though again obviously… it matters a lot) and more about being on board with the whole “bringing back the Aryans” idea. If you were a communist and looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger or that giant dude who played The Mountain, that was great and all… but you were still an enemy and were going to be dealt with the way they dealt with any Eastern European Jewish or Slavic communists. You gotta look the part and you gotta play the part of you can gtfo (usually through death). That’s why they can write off Greta. She may meet their physical requirements, but ideologically she’s very clearly not aligned with them. It might make some Nazi shed an extra tear to execute someone who looks like her, but they’ll gladly do it anyway in pursuit of their goals. Whether they truly believe the Aryan myth stuff or are more pragmatic ie “just in it for the killing and stealing” she stands in their way and has to go.

You see similar (the same really) logic applied to anti-Zionist Jews. They may be “Jewish” but if they oppose Zionism… doesn’t matter. Hardline Zionists will announce that they aren’t real Jews. If it comes down to it they’ll happily kill anti-Zionist Jews as well. No one can stand in the way of the ethnostate project.

Again abolitionists were treated in a similar way. If you meaningfully side with the oppressed then you are socially stripped of your protections and sometimes this leads to further consequences. The in-group may be slower to act on dissenters from within, but in the end there is some line that they will punish people for crossing. “The 1000 Year Reich,” “Israel,” or “The United States” were/are all far more important projects than any dissident regardless of their physical characteristics.

I enjoy holding the most petty of conspiratorial opinions

That sounds plausible as well. Basically anything besides “a bullet getting so close that it juuuuust barely scraped his skin.” That is possible, I just don’t believe it. He has every incentive to lie and zero to say “the doctors pulled a shard of glass out of my ear.”

Small factual correction: No proof was ever provided or produced that be was “shot” in the ear. A secret service agent told the press after the attempted shooting he had been struck in the ear by shrapnel. Potentially glass from the podium or whatever.

I just feel the need to always mention this because had someone, anyone, been shot in the ear there would be physical evidence once the wound recovered. Is his ear missing a chunk? Does it have a hole? Is he seriously trying to claim a bullet only grazed him? The far more likely outcome is what the secret service guy said at the time. I’ll be maintaining this opinion until I die. Not sure what evidence could change my mind at this point because obviously any medical or whatever reports will be influenced aka fake to support his narrative.

If AOC was the right wing of the democrats things would definitely be better. I’m not a New Yorker but if she replaced Schumer that would be a good thing for sure. Schumer has quite literally done nothing positive in his position for however long that’s been. I want to say 8-12 years. I used to wonder what that piece of shit was even doing in politics. Now I get it. He just loves Israel.

I won’t be surprised to see one of these shutdowns result in a bipartisan bill to fund arms shipments forever. None of the money is real, obviously, so the funding doesn’t ultimately matter. As long as someone eventually gets their digital dollary-doos in the form of number go up in some account then it keeps churning.

Instead of writing bills to permanently fund all existing federal programs (or whatever legal wording) until/unless that program is repealed by Congress which is how I think every other nation on earth generally operates. They’ll just continue on with the “Oh, boy! Food stamps isn’t funded! Ohhhh boy!” Every year forever.

As annoying as Torres is, Jeffries is the far more important one to boot out immediately. Schumer has to be forcefully evicted as well.

I’ll be honest though. If the proposed replacements aren’t solidly hardline anti-Israel, anti-imperialist, anti-ICE (abolition AND MORE IMPORTANTLY prosecution of every single person connected even tangentially to it), etc. then… why bother? Getting a less assholish asshole is still getting an asshole. Lesser evil stuff repeated. I find it infinitely hard to believe anyone with (D) in their title will be even close to my personal criteria above despite that stuff polling well. Especially explicitly anti-Israel. It’s got like 96% democrat voter support. You’d probably get elected just saying you’ll propose a bill yearly to carpet bomb Tel Aviv. Like that Roman senator who used to always say “Oh, just one more thing. We must destroy Carthage” or whatever. Nerds know who I mean. The famous asshole. This time for good.

Many of those listed things have been explicitly adjudicated as “free speech” by SCOTUS.

But good luck to him on arresting 70-80% of the population, I guess.

Is that the Air Force academy? Or the space nerds? I could believe junior officers in training huffing those delusions. Don’t think I’ve seen/heard of but a handful of the Hegseth phenotype. The drunken wife beating Crusader

Yeah no shit

Is this surprising to anyone really? Most people in the military, even active duty, are fairly “apolitical.” Yeah they lean slightly right all the way to far right wing, just like 99% of Americans. But they aren’t like thinking they’re all warriors for God or something.

It’s mostly underperforming young people who are in good physical health and either couldn’t find a job in the private sector or couldn’t be fucked to find one. Sign up for the military, try to position yourself in a cushy position, and do nothing while getting a paycheck.

The NG guys absolutely 100% are far less “gung ho” than the active who are already far from gung ho. NG being activated means they gotta do stuff. They didn’t sign up to do stuff! Not in the NG! They signed up to like go stack some sandbags after a bad flood. Other than that they go to trainings, get the pay, get the benefits, that’s all they want. Not to be activated and abused for the political ends of some dipshit narcissist. That means they gotta be in conflict with people. They gotta wear a uniform. They gotta travel to Portland. That’s all way too much work just so Fatass in Chief can jerk off to the handsome troops.

I always imagine how hard Xi is laughing every day when he gets a quick update on the crumbling US empire

“Shut down? Again?”

This shit happens every year and the “liberal” party just sits on their thumbs spinning in circles whistling to themselves. The republicans have explicitly said a billion times for decades that they want to shut everything down. You can only beat them by making that impossible aka pass indefinite spending bills and whatever else. Fucking morons and controlled opposition

“Ok. I’ll go hang out with the people not threatening me.”

I don’t think these idiots understand the US needs Taiwan. Not really the other way around. I think they’ve been huffing too many of their own farts.

Many people have made this argument before, so I’m not going to shittily try to re-articulate it. But basically the entire concept of what legally constitutes a genocide is one of those “good ideas” that was immediately co-opted by western powers to weaponize forever. I guess the most boiled down conclusion is “The problem isn’t that they won’t say a specific word. The problem is they deny everything which makes that word apply in the first place.”

I guess that’s where I fall on it and have for probably over a year. I don’t really care if Bernie Sanders says “it’s a genocide.” What I care about much more is Sanders saying “Israel has a right to defend itself” and then never expanding on wtf that means. Israel has zero right morally or legally to do anything to Gaza or even be inside Gaza. The same applies to the West Bank. So what exactly does he mean with that phrase? Clearly he means it’s “ok” to bomb children and civilians in Gaza as long as Israel says it’s meant to kill Hamas militants. Well, not even militants. They just say “Hamas” broadly which includes medical professionals and everyone else. He will say that’s them defending themselves. He just thinks they defended themselves… too much? There’s no real logic there. Just a phrase that requires repeating even though it’s for no one at this point. Zionists are done with your ass for even lightly criticizing their campaign of death. It doesn’t matter if you offer them conditional cover for the atrocities. They require full acceptance or you’re their enemy.

Although I hate making these statements, I will say quickly this is obviously not some sort of argument for genocide as a legal concept being thrown away. I’m just gesturing at part of the problem without offering much of a solution beyond I suppose “they should stop the political bullshit spin-jobs and just say the truth.” I think it might be beneficial for Medhi, etc. to ask “is it a genocide?” one time. Then whether they say yes or no, keep probing. “At what point was it a genocide?” “Did Israel have any legal or moral right to do a single attack in Gaza?” “Is starving an entire population ever acceptable?” “Was the siege on Gaza for decades not an act of aggression on the entire population living there?”

I don’t think someone calling it a genocide is enough I guess. I’ve seen many liberals cave and start calling it that. Yet they still remain very clear apologists for Israel and Zionism. They still hand wring and condemn Hamas. It’s victim blaming to a crazy-ass magnitude that I’ve never really seen before.

I think they’re really struggling to find that magical “out” for western imperialism broadly. Some way to condemn the evil Muslims but also say “well, this went too far.” The more honest ones know there is no way to condemn Israel but also uphold US/western imperialism. They don’t even attempt it. The others are stuck defending a genocide. They “condemn” it and then immediately explain why it has to happen. Which wraps back around into the obvious fact that if they’re defending a genocide even a little bit then that indicates they don’t believe one is happening or they think don’t actually think genocide is unacceptable across the board. This is the contradiction liberals have had ripping their brains apart for years now. There’s only two logical conclusions when they finally settle and I don’t place much faith in them landing on condemning Israel without reservation and advocating for the dissolution of Israel.

“Kill fascists”

“No, stop! We love fascists!”

Honestly glad dogs like Little Marco continue to just openly be pro-fascist at every chance. It makes it a fuck of a lot easier to say “those guys are fascists. See they keep saying it.” Despite their attempts to “make fascism cool” or whatever I don’t think it’s really worked at all. Most people understand you don’t want to be a fascist, Nazi, etc. They might not know why or what it means but they know it’s bad. Openly running to the defense of fascists, openly saying your government is anti-anti-fascist (pro-fascist or just fascist), not sure that’s gonna work out for you, big dawgs. The crypto angle was much more effective. But something something enemies, mistakes, not interrupting.

Next to his best buddies

Hell has already claimed a few of them. Rumsfeld, Powell. But the top dogs are still around. Necks totally intact to my knowledge.

Someone

Please

Be a Luigi

Someone should make Montgomery, Alabama: Insurgency.

You play a Chinese soldier on a mission to liberate Montgomery from the festering infection of hogs

Had to be General Harold Greene. He got killed by an Afghan National Army guy working in cooperation with the US in Afghanistan. Not sure if this “counts” because he was an ally but not an American soldier. Also he was shot not literally fragged (like with a grenade).

The highest rank I saw killed directly by actual fragging was a major and a captain in one event. That was an American soldier killing other Americans in Vietnam. I assume it’s incredibly rare for anyone over the rank of major to be literally fragged because they won’t be staying out “in the field” with the regular soldiers the way a lieutenant or captain would be. A major would also not be near regular soldiers for the most part, not in a war scenario, so that must’ve been quite the opportunity that person took to nail a major and captain at once.

Here’s the funniest story of “purposeful friendly fire” I could find. Heinrich von Breymann he was a lieutenant colonel serving under a British officer when they were fighting to put down the American revolution (Battle of Saratoga).

From the Wikipedia article: “On 7 October 1777, Breymann’s unit was driven behind a redoubt by American troops; he grew frustrated with his own men and began attacking four soldiers with his sabre before Breymann was shot and killed by one of them.”

Lol.

Pretty sure it was confirmed (I don’t remember the details and am lazy) that like as the capitol was being actively taken over (which is regarded as funny because it is. But in that moment it surely wasn’t for the 535 legislators and their staff) Pelosi, Pence, whoever else were on the line with the nearby National guard leadership like “Hey, we need police backup” basically. Some form of emergency police to stop the riot. They were trying to get Trump do authorize it too I believe but he just sat there like “hmm. Nope. There’s nothing going on, folks.” It was hours before he finally told the people to stop and go home. It seems fairly clear he was deliberately waiting to see an outcome. The incredibly cucked thing is how he wasn’t immediately arrested for what he obviously did (instigated a coup attempt- even if it was farcical). What a joke-ass nation. When someone attempts and fails a coup you don’t put them in prison (Lula! Wtf?! Firing squad now!). You definitely don’t just “let them get away with it.” Zero self preservation. Full idiocy.

Yeah causing a nuclear exchange… that seems smart.

Because what would happen is China would immediately destroy every single US navy ship in and around Chinese waters. They’d immediately take down every single USAF jet/bomber.

Then the US would stomp its feet and shit diapers while Beijing tries to get a world summit together to figure out wtf the US just tried to do. It would have to end there with a huge defeat for the US attempted invasion or it would just inevitably go on until the US lost all fighting capability and starts considering the suicide nuclear option.