Jon 👾👾👾💥👾👾

The Ship of Fools

23 years ago tonight, in an Oval Office address, George W. Bush announced the start of the Iraq War. 4,492 American service members were killed in the years that followed. 32,292 were wounded. At least 200,000 Iraqi civilians died. The humanitarian impact was immense. America wasted 9 years and 3 trillion dollars on a war that never should have happened—a war predicated on a lie, pushed by warmongering neocon politicians, and paid for by everyday people. Imagine what that $3 trillion could have bought here at home. Imagine the decade we could have spent focusing on America, our people, our place in the world. Imagine the lives our service members, stolen from us, would have lived. But instead, the president took us to war. Yet another costly quagmire in the Middle East. I voted against the Iraq War. I knew the White House would lie to Members of Congress and voters alike to manufacture the pretext for a conflict—and they did. Now, Iran is shaping up to be Iraq 2.0—new lies, new bloodthirsty politicians, still paid for by American families. Yesterday, we learned that Trump wants another $200 billion for his war. That's after Congress already gave the Pentagon more money than it even asked for in the budget. Enough is enough. It is not too late to learn from the past. Stop this madness. Bring our troops home. End this war.

They treated her almost as bad as Republicans treat a woman going to planned parenthood.

That’s pretty fast, so fast that it’s actually kind of jarring considering Trump put the slaveholder names back in so many things. And also that the president, who is a known and admitted sexual predator, is still trying to name so many things after himself.

@timburchett @SecWar That’s pretty fast, so fast that it’s actually kind of jarring considering Trump put the slaveholder names back in so many things. And that the president, who is a known, admitted sexual predator, is still trying to name so many things after himself.

I am preparing a letter asking @SecWar to remove the name of Cesar Chavez from the USNS CESAR CHAVEZ.

California golden poppies as far as the eye can see

@SpeakerJohnson Hard to compare with the party of literally shooting puppies though. Please keep the softballs coming Mike.

The Democrats just decided to officially become the party of PUNCHING PUPPIES. 190 Democrats just voted to give illegal immigrants the RIGHT TO PHYSICALLY ABUSE American service dogs — serving with law enforcement protecting American citizens. The level Democrats will go to protect illegal aliens instead of Americans is disturbing, disgusting, and dangerous.

@DOWResponse @SecWar “Mission accomplished!”

.@SECWAR “This media here—not all of it, but much of it—wants you to think, just 19 days into this conflict, that we are somehow spinning toward an endless abyss, or a ‘forever war,’ or a quagmire. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. Hear it from me, one of hundreds of thousands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, who watched foolish politicians like Bush, Obama, and Biden squander American credibility, treasure, and troops—this is NOT those wars. President Trump knows better. Epic Fury IS DIFFERENT.”

Seven clocks are running. None of them negotiable. All of them counting down to the same weeks. The planting clock. Mid-April is the biological deadline for corn and soybean planting across the US Midwest. Every day that passes without nitrogen becoming affordable and available narrows the window for corn. USDA projects corn falling to 94 million acres from 98.8 million. Soybeans rising to 85 million from 81.2 million. The seeds that go into the ground in the next three weeks determine America’s grain harvest in October. The decision is irreversible. The USDA clock. March 31. Prospective Plantings. The report that converts farmer intentions into official data. Every acreage number, every corn-soy ratio, every nitrogen-dependent calculation becomes a published fact that traders, governments, and food agencies will use to model global supply for the next twelve months. The number arrives in twelve days. The FAO clock. April 3. The Food Price Index. The first global reading that captures post-Hormuz commodity prices across cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat, and sugar. The 2022 peak was 159.7 in March 2022 after Ukraine. This reading will incorporate oil above $100, urea at $610, LNG halted, packaging repriced, and freight surcharges of $500 to $1,500 per container. The number that determines whether the UN declares a food emergency arrives in fifteen days. The pharmaceutical clock. India’s API inventory buffers are two to three months, measured from the war’s onset on February 28. Late May is the depletion window. Methanol at 87.7 percent Hormuz exposure feeds the solvent chain for paracetamol, ibuprofen, metformin, and antibiotics. Once buffers deplete, the shortage becomes a patient access crisis for the 47 percent of US generics that originate in India. The China crude clock. FGE NexantECA confirmed China is drawing commercial reserves at up to one million barrels per day. The draw sustains refinery operations for four to six weeks from March 19. Mid-April to late April is the exhaustion window. After that, China faces three options: accelerate Russian pipeline imports, reroute at massive premium, or crack open the strategic petroleum reserve. The third option reprices every commodity on the planet. The helium clock. SK Hynix and Samsung hold two to three months of helium inventory. Late May to early June is the depletion window. South Korea imports 64.7 percent of its helium from Qatar. Ras Laffan is offline. If helium buffers deplete before alternative supply arrives, semiconductor fabrication faces rationing. The AI hardware supply chain hits a physical wall measured in months, not quarters. The insurance clock. Solvency II requires 30 to 60 days of zero incidents before P&I clubs can reinstate war risk coverage. Even after a ceasefire, the insurance normalisation takes six to sixteen months based on the Red Sea precedent of 26 months and counting. The logistics system lags the financial relief rally by the longest duration of any clock in this crisis. Seven clocks. The shortest expires in twelve days. The longest runs for over a year. The planting window, the USDA report, the FAO index, the drug buffers, the Chinese crude draw, the helium inventory, and the insurance cycle are all counting down simultaneously. None of them pause for diplomacy. None of them respond to presidential directives. None of them read sealed packets. The calendar is the only actor in this war that has never lost a negotiation. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@AAGDhillon Yes. Why would she lie about following the law when she clearly is clawing back embarrassing documents, hiding anything that had the string “don” etc? Because she wasn’t under oath so she felt empowered to lie! Why are you aiding and abetting her covering for a pedo ring?

She literally said “I will follow the law” at least six times during the briefing. Why lie?

@m_atoms @emissionite For sure. Didn’t mean to disparage their work, just how Peskin used it as a bait and switch.

@vjon @emissionite For what it’s worth, the Prop E task force actually did really solid research and proposed fairly significant changes. But you’re right that the political pathway for actually making the changes probably doomed it from the start.

San Francisco spent the past year studying the city government's commission system and proposing reforms. The Board of Supervisors plans to ignore almost all of them.

This is wild. People in *every single one* of the top US allies now think it's better to depend on China than the US. The global balance of power is clearly tilting away from the US and toward China.

Remember that 20 million people saw their health care premiums double because $30 billion was too expensive.

Dear White House: When you’re wondering why we don’t have friends anymore, it’s this. You are incompetent idiots. And you are destroying the West.

Another Aaron Peskin con-man special. Totally predictable result.

Breaking news: A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s dismantling of Voice of America was unlawful and ordered more than 1,000 employees, who have spent a full year on paid administrative leave, back to work. wapo.st/4cNurFM

One thing I think needs to be clear: zoning isn't just "one piece of the puzzle," it's the picture on the box, the framework that the puzzle is built into. Right now, it's illegal to build more housing in more than 70% of LA. Until that changes, the housing crisis will persist.

@AAGDhillon No reason to talk to her if she’s not under oath. She just lies and refuses to answer questions

You had the chance to ask the AG anything you wanted — and you ran outside to the cameras instead. Unfortunate!