
David Gray
13.1K posts

David Gray
@Bad_DavidG
East Texas Living. Finance. Independent. Civil Libertarian.













@UnimpressedTX And yet he concludes his investigation established no conspiracy between Trump and Russia.

Paul Begala is right. If you're a liberal, there's good reason to stand with Israel.




Is there anything worse than a crying baby on a plane? I wish parents would control their children. It’s so disruptive. I refuse to believe a baby cries for 10 hours. At some point this is just bad parenting, right?







BREAKING: The Palestinian Authority just condemned Iran’s attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Read that sentence again. The entity whose cause Iran has invoked for four decades to justify every proxy war, every missile programme, every threat against every Arab neighbour just picked up the phone and told Riyadh it stands with the Kingdom. Palestinian Interior Minister Ziyad Hab al-Reeh called Saudi Interior Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef on 21st March and expressed what the Saudi Press Agency recorded as the State of Palestine’s condemnation of the Iranian attacks targeting the Kingdom, the Gulf states, and the region. He affirmed solidarity with all measures taken by Saudi Arabia to preserve its security, sovereignty, and the safety of its territory and citizens. The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA carried the same statement. Al Arabiya amplified it across the Arab world. This is the most consequential diplomatic signal of this war and it has received almost no coverage. Iran’s entire regional architecture is built on one claim: that Tehran is the defender of the Palestinian cause. That claim justified the creation of Hezbollah. It justified the funding of Hamas. It justified the missile transfers to Islamic Jihad. It justified the Quds Force’s name, which is the Arabic word for Jerusalem. It justified four decades of threatening Gulf Arab states as American puppets who betrayed the Palestinian people. Every proxy, every rocket, every militia was wrapped in the flag of Palestine. The moral legitimacy of Iran’s regional posture rests on the premise that Tehran fights for a people whose own government just condemned Tehran’s war. The Palestinian Authority is not Hamas. That distinction is the fracture this phone call exposes. Hamas receives Iranian funding, weapons, and strategic direction. The PA in Ramallah receives Gulf funding, maintains diplomatic relations with Arab states, and governs the West Bank under a framework that depends on the same Gulf monarchies Iran is currently bombing. When Iran struck Ras Laffan in Qatar, Shah and Habshan gas facilities in the UAE, and refineries in Saudi Arabia, it attacked the economic infrastructure of the states that fund Palestinian governance. The PA did not need to calculate whether to condemn. The calculation was arithmetic: the countries paying Palestinian salaries are the countries Iran is bombing. But the symbolism transcends the funding. Iran cannot claim to fight for Palestine when Palestine says stop bombing our allies. The moral architecture collapses not because of American pressure or Israeli intelligence or military degradation. It collapses because the people at the centre of the narrative rejected the narrator. The flag Iran wrapped around its missiles was taken back by the people whose flag it is. 23 nations signed a statement condemning Iran’s Hormuz closure. Greece fired a Patriot over Saudi Arabia. Britain sent a nuclear submarine. India called Tehran on Nowruz. China is buying 600 kilograms of gold per minute. But none of those signals carry the weight of the Palestinian Authority calling Riyadh and saying: we condemn Iran. Because Iran can survive military degradation. It can survive economic isolation. It can survive a 48-hour ultimatum. It cannot survive the loss of the one cause that made its entire regional project morally intelligible to the populations it claims to serve. The phone call lasted minutes. The damage is permanent. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…







🇮🇷🇺🇸🇬🇧 Iran just proved its missiles can reach far beyond the Middle East Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-UK military base sitting 4,000 kilometers away in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Neither hit the base, but the message landed harder than any warhead could. Tehran has always publicly claimed its missile range tops out at 2,000 km. This strike attempt doubles that number overnight. The Khorramshahr-4 that likely carried out the attack can also deliver cluster warheads, the same munitions that have been devastating Israeli cities for three weeks. Look at the map. A 4,000 km range from Tehran draws a circle that reaches Paris, London, and most of Europe. Every NATO capital that thought this war was a distant Middle Eastern problem just realized Iranian missiles could theoretically reach their doorstep. Source: @sentdefender WSJ





I'm shocked -- shocked! -- that Iran lies through its teeth at every turn. And everyone who built their strategy on trusting the ayatollahs was handing us over -- Israelis, Gulf states -- as the sacrifice on the altar of appeasement.





The NYT struggles to comprehend how Mr. Baranes, the notable new architect for Trump's White House ballroom project, could actually prioritize professionalism over politics: "'I am totally baffled why he would take this on,' said Nancy MacWood, a longtime Washington preservationist and civic leader who for decades has watched Mr. Baranes massage city review boards and make the case for his work." Contrast the statement above with this one: "Colleagues say Mr. Baranes took on the project because he thought he could make it better after a previous architect..." Isn't this how things should work? Should't we just do a great project regardless of personal political views? Not according to the NYT. His reputation will be forever sullied by the stink of having worked with Trump. "...the Trump ballroom will be his legacy, and what many fellow architects say will not be in a good way."







