@HeerJeet @jonathanchait What does this have to do with Collins interview
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engleberta
648 posts
@jonathanchait The question of whether he's contradicting himself is a narrow one. On the substance, do you think Iran has a right to defend itself? More broadly, do you think US has. should decide which countries have a right to defend themselves and which don't?
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Collins is in fact completely calm, asks straightforward questions to draw out a Senator's position, which is transparently at odds with his old one.
Ryan Grim@ryangrim
Collins absolutely loses her mind at the idea, from a Republican senator, that Iran has a right to defend itself
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I have serious concerns about the MOU. But President Trump has done more damage to the Islamic Republic and its nuclear, war-making, economic and leadership capabilities than any president in 47 years. He deserves the gratitude of Americans and our Middle Eastern allies.
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@DavidAFrench The more neocons freak out, the more popular they will make Trump again. This reaction is helping people to remember why they voted for Trump in the first place.
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"In their arrogance, Trump and Netanyahu defied their predecessors in all the worst ways, and now they court a profound defeat when, not long ago, a meaningful victory, however partial, was well within their grasp." nytimes.com/2026/06/18/opi…
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@ShadowProjector @jpodhoretz Exactly my question for otherwise intelligent people. The only acceptable response when Donald Trump says "I want to help" is "I'd rather take my chances in the shark tank"
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@jpodhoretz John, I’ve followed your work for years. Your generation taught me “character is destiny.” And you were all right. So, I was truly baffled by your unbridled enthusiasm when the war began. After ten years of Trump’s depravity what on earth made you think was going to end well ?
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Our vice president is about three minutes away from posting pictures of Pepe the anti-Semitic frog.
Jack Posobiec@JackPosobiec
"Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to Israel at this moment." "If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world."
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Congrats Miriam Adelson!!
The Bulwark@BulwarkOnline
Vance: "Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this point in time…If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world."
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DOUTHAT: Let's be honest -- the tone of the administration is not consistently a Christian tone. There is a tone of aggressive uncharity
JD VANCE: Tonal arguments are ways of, frankly, policing working class ways of communication, and covering them in elite preferences
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@Patranoid @atrupar You're absolutely right that this is his harebrained strategy. If he sounds like he sorta doesn't really care about the details he thinks voters will identify with him
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JD Vance: "On the frozen funds, the amount of money I honestly don't know. I've actually heard numbers north of $200 billion."
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@ReubenR80027912 @wildlowerwolves Your fault was being bullish on any life and death matter being handled by Donald Trump
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@wildlowerwolves FWIW, the UAE was talking generational game when the war was at its apex…my fault was believing them
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I was bullish on the war when Trump was hitting *1,000 targets a day* and Bibi was saying “Iranians the time to rise up is nearly at hand”
The day after Iranian citizens were *calling in drone hits on secret police thugs hiding under bridges* Trump backed off at behest of 🇹🇷🇶🇦🇵🇰
FlorBama Joe@florbamajoe
@ReubenR80027912 Haven’t checked in for a while. Do you still stand by your early Iran war cheerleading?
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@hughhewitt @rich_goldberg Here's my horseshit pollyanna tweet for all my rube followers followed by my quiet agreement in the comments that you could fly fucking Air Force One through the holes in my theory
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This might make sense. What doesn’t make sense is starting to make statements that legitimize a terrorist regime or its terror proxies, its missile threats, etc. Obama broke the Democrats through JCPOA, making appeasement of terrorists an ideology. GOP shouldn’t follow.
Hugh Hewitt@hughhewitt
This. Assume that many inside the Administration, including President Trump, settled on this course weeks ago. Keeping the Senate and (against all odds) the House in GOP hands isn’t just a political goal for Republicans, it’s critical to the national security. The Democrats are simply not serious about the national defense. The DSA takeover of the Dems has caused the party as a whole to lurch the far left. If either house of Congress flips, the national security will be damaged, perhaps severely (as did the 2011 Sequester). So President Trump factoring in the realities of domestic politics and their consequences is a right and proper calculation.
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@PostOpinions @asymmetricinfo @GadSaad He has no cogent answer for why the seemingly inexorable cultural clashes prior centuries were wrong but our present ones are logical. He doesn't want them to be wrong because he's emotionally invested. He needs to recuse himself and defer to people who can think straight
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Is empathy destroying the West? That's the provocative claim at the center of @GadSaad's new book, "Suicidal Empathy."
@asymmetricinfo is joined by Saad to discuss the trade-offs societies make in the name of compassion: wapo.st/3SNgK1n
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@The_Knutsen @mattyglesias He promised no increased NYPD headcount and is now going to hire 500 more
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@mattyglesias He's not swiftly abandoning anything. He's going battle by battle because that's how effective governance works
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This is clearly wrong, though.
The left’s current superstar won by making a bunch of wild unrealistic promises that he’s swiftly abandoned — and progressives love it!
Leah Greenberg says NO KINGS ❌👑@Leahgreenb
Strongly agree here. Lots of people currently don’t trust Dems to do what they say they’ll do. You can’t fix that by making more promises. You fix it by demonstrating that you’re willing to stand up for your values in the face of real political risk.
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@AmitSegal LOL the only consolation of this mess is seeing our piece of shit president rub glass in the wounds of your piece of shit prime minister. At least we can still count on him to be entertainingly petty!
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Trump to Kan News: "It’s very likely that I’ll support Netanyahu in the elections, but I need to see who’s running. He needs to be more rational."
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@willy1555 @mdubowitz Yes I'm sure Vance, Rubio and a slew of GOP looking toward 2028 will be happy to tap dance into Operation 2 Epic 2 Furious just in time for primary season
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@mdubowitz The only scenario that makes sense is delay past the election. Or Qatar controls Rs too now
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The good news: oil is below $80, down roughly 35–40% from its highs.
The bad news: billions could flow back to Tehran to rebuild its deadly capabilities.
If President Trump can refuel energy markets, restrict regime’s access to cash, maintain pressure, and also prepare a plan — Operation People’s Fury — for the day Iranians return to the streets, this strategy may look far better a few months from now.
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@DavidADaoud Senior fellow at FDD complaining about activism. That's comedy
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Activism is a mental disease.
Jeremiah Johnson 🌐@JeremiahDJohns
Activism is not a social club. Activism is not about looking cool or morally righteous. Activism is not dunking on people. It's not when you ratio someone. Activism is about real world change. The rest is worthless if it doesn't lead to that. infinitescroll.us/p/activism-is-…
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@havivrettiggur All our previous presidents told you guys "No" for this very reason. Only our dumbest president was willing to say yes
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I don’t know what happened here.
“Netanyahu convinced us it would be easy” is a lame excuse. It isn’t his duty to do America’s homework or make America’s decisions. And he wasn’t lying about his own ability to see the war through no matter the cost. If he told the Americans “we can handle it,” he was telling the truth from his vantage point.
My best guess as to how the Americans came to launch a war they weren’t prepared to see through to the end is that it emerged from a vast gap in assumptions between the Israelis and the Americans.
The Israelis feel existentially threatened by the Iranian regime, so they approach the problem with a very high pain threshold. They’re willing to put boots on the ground, lose hundreds of soldiers, sustain ballistic missile barrages on their cities and endure years of economic pain.
When America felt existentially threatened in past generations, it was also able to do these things.
But right now, America doesn’t feel so threatened, and so doesn’t approach the problem of Iran with the same pain threshold.
It’s easy to imagine how this fundamental gap might’ve produced a lopsided strategic conversation in which both sides thought they understood each other without either noticing that they were operating out of very different assumptions about the scale and urgency of the threat.
Damon Linker@DamonLinker
"I didn't realize how little the Americans understood the enemy they were fighting." Much like in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. When Netanyahu convinced Trump to go along by telling him they could topple the regime in a matters of days, was he lying? Or equally deceived?
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@rich_goldberg 3) should anyone of any political persuasion or goals have ever put their hopes in Donald fucking Trump.
Yes or no
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Two simple questions:
1) Is Iran still a state sponsor of terrorism?
2) Is the IRGC still a terrorist organization?
Very simple yes or no questions.
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@EylonALevy @yaakovkatz The problem you guys have over there is not understanding that our President is a fucking venal moron. When he said "Hey guys I'd like to help" your only response should've been "thanks I'd rather take my chances in the crocodile pit"
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@yaakovkatz What he thinks is right, but the president will have many layers of considerations, including domestic politics.
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This is controversial, but it needs to be said: many Israelis are reacting to the US-Iran MOU with an unbelievable degree of immaturity.
Trump is being portrayed as a traitor, a flip-flopper, a man who abandoned Israel. Newspapers are putting headlines on the front page about how he is no longer a friend. Journalists who proudly posted photos of themselves interviewing him are now putting Xs over those pictures.
But let’s look at what actually happened: Trump went to war expecting a certain outcome and when that outcome did not materialize he made a decision to cut his losses and do what he believes serves America’s interests: to end the war now, under terms that many of us wish were stronger and more favorable.
By the way, it was always obvious that the war had a narrow window and was not going to carry on into the summer with the World Cup and the 250th coming on July 4.
Everyone is allowed to disagree with the deal and think it’s flawed (I definitely do). You can also argue that it leaves dangerous questions unanswered about uranium, missiles, and Iran’s support for terrorism.
But Trump’s decision was never about Israel’s interests alone. It was about America’s interests.
These critics need to get over the shock of what Trump did. Their problem was thinking (why, God only knows) that every decision Trump makes is guided primarily by what is best for Israel. What happened is something else - these people fundamentally misunderstood how the relationship with the US works. Now they have learned.
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@dilanesper I always think about how the Vietnamese have tended to have among the best views of the US among nations. The VIETNAMESE. Everything eventually just becomes the past. Everything.
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@dilanesper The thing about international relations in general that people forget in the heat of the moment is that once the problems are solved these things can recover quite well. In fact it's the fear that "this is forever" that hampers creativity in solving problems in the present
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the thing about the destruction of Israel's relationship with the Democrats is that it is quite real, but is also probably easily reparable by Israel. Getting rid of Bibi in the election, a settlement freeze, and arresting and prosecuting everyone abusing Palestinians would do it
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