Alan Mandel

@spartan2600 @rosterbatorium @RKelanic Son, being an asshole isn’t persuasive — it just makes you look small.

@TheWisdomToKnow @rosterbatorium @RKelanic Being an asshole is not persuasive.

LloydsList: “At least two vessels transiting through the strait are understood to have paid in exchange for safe passage, with one fee reported to have been around $2m.” $2 million on a VLCC carrying 2 million barrels = $1/barrel premium. Quite a bargain in this market. Expect more to follow suit. lloydslist.com/LL1156694/Zomb…

Those ICE agents at Dulles aren’t there to play TSA games — they’re there to identify and intercept threats that have already entered the country through our broken immigration system. Dismissing them as untrained rights-violators ignores the reality that deterrence and enforcement at the point of entry have prevented far more incidents than they’ve created. If you want real airport security, support actual vetting and deportation, not performative skepticism.

@TheWisdomToKnow @secretsqrl123 @FordFischer "Visible deterrence" is often nothing more than security theater. Those ICE agents aren't trained in counter terror or airport security. They're barely trained to do their own jobs. They're more likely to violate an innocent American's rights than prevent anything.

NOW: ICE agents patrol Dulles International Airport (IAD).

Mario, this is no longer journalism — it’s performative defeatism wrapped in selective outrage. You frame Iran’s extortion racket (“toll gate”) and the trapping of 20,000 mariners as somehow America’s failure, while quietly ignoring that Tehran is the one mining the strait, attacking civilian vessels, and pursuing its apocalyptic Twelver eschatology. The U.S. allowing limited oil sales to prevent a global price shock is called strategic restraint, not weakness. Meanwhile, you shift blame onto Washington as the Boxer group steams in to restore deterrence. You used to be sharper than this. Today you sound like a tenth of what you once were — chasing clicks with defeatist framing instead of calling out the regime that created the crisis in the first place. Stick to the facts, or retire the “journalist” label entirely.

🇮🇷 Iran is still enforcing its “toll gate,” only letting a few approved tankers through while roughly 3,200 vessels and 20,000 mariners remain trapped inside the Gulf. The US has allowed Iran to load and sell millions of barrels of oil to keep global prices from exploding, even as the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group races across the Pacific to reinforce American forces already heading to the region. Source: WardCarroll YT

8 officers “doing nothing” at Dulles? That’s not waste — that’s deterrence. You’re complaining about ~$10k/day while Iran mines the Strait, kills merchant mariners, and runs an apocalyptic death cult. The real cost is what happens when the goons see zero visible presence and decide the soft target is worth hitting. Your “intel guy” background should tell you: visible deterrence is cheap insurance. The alternative is far more expensive. Next time count the bodies instead of the hourly rate.

@FordFischer 8 officers walking around doing nothing, thats over 400.00 an hr + extra for room and board. or about 10,000 a day to do noting but walk around and do nothing. and this is all over the country

Classic Iranian regime troll — deflecting blame while your side kills civilians, civilian mariners, mines the Strait of Hormuz, and pursues religious Armageddon to summon the Mahdi. (She's gay. You don’t get to cry “genocide” or “who started the war” when Tehran extorts tankers at gunpoint and attacks its former Arab allies as certain Muslims are expendable. The real starting point was Iran’s apocalyptic ideology, not Trump’s pressure. Go shill your propaganda somewhere else.

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic Better to troll for the ones who didn't start the war than those who supported or carried out the ongoing genocide. x.com/i/bookmarks/19…

@RepMcGovern False dichotomy (false dilemma): Framing the choice as “bombs overseas OR affordable housing/healthcare,” as if the United States cannot fund both defense against existential threats and domestic priorities. Propaganda of fascist/totalitarian regimes.

It would have cost $30 Billion to extend the ACA healthcare tax credits for 1 year, making health insurance more affordable for millions of Americans. Instead, Republicans burned through that money in just 3 weeks on a war of choice half way around the world.

@wootendw @RKelanic Thank you Iran troll.

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic Iran has the right to defend itself from Washington/Israeli aggression. Iran did not start this war. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait allowed the attacks so Iran has the right to retaliate against them. The UAE is finished. Millionaires will never feel safe there again.

@ItsTheEnforcer @mchooyah Do you still hold to your assessment?

@mchooyah I wouldn’t be jealous. And I say that with all the care in the world for our forces. Those guys are likely gonna take significant casualties trying to hold the island. Iran is going to bombard them with missiles and drones before they have a chance to fortify their positions.

If the 82nd jumps into that Iranian island I’m gonna be jealous as shit…

It's the same as using a calculator or going to the library. My fellow professors, journalists, professionals use Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, other AI tools. The originality is in the thinking, structure and final judgement. You? You hint at ad hominem with no effort to back or dispute an argument. Plagarism, on the other hand, is intellectual dishonesty.

@TheWisdomToKnow @ItsTheEnforcer @mchooyah Yes ChatGPT

@rosterbatorium @RKelanic That is called "appeal to common knowledge" or assumption of consensus. Such claims from ignorance are what totalitalitarian and fascist regimes instill in their myrmidon. I’d like you to use a dictionary or context clues to figure out what that word means.

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic If the situation were reversed, and say oil had to come through the Gulf of Mexico, and Trump charged an extortion fee for allowing safe passage, his base would 100% applaud the move as "genius".

@tjdawson66 @RKelanic That's called the "bandwagon" fallacy; alleged certainty.

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic If Trump could do this, he would. We all know that.

It's a COVID 2.0. The commercial real estate offices and local businesses begging for workers to commute just got stabbed in the heart. Here we go with the home schooling, mental health crisis and anti-social behavior all over again. Regional bank will be fossiles, they do not want the keys back to the commercial real estate they sold.

South Korea’ energy minister stated that passenger vehicles at public institutions will be barred from operating one day each week.

@RKelanic Referring me to Tilly and Olson on a social media forum while shifting the burden of proof is disingenuous at best. If you wish to engage in genuine critical thinking and philosophical scrutiny of these arguments, I am happy to discuss them at length. I do not “nerd out” on Twitter — a term I find both unfamiliar and unbecoming of serious discourse. Should you care to enroll in a proper seminar on judicious reasoning, my door is open. Until then, kindly spare us the drive-by citations.

@TheWisdomToKnow Also read Charles Tilly on the state as a protection racket. Brilliant guy. warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/histo…

@jayandroy @RKelanic Exactly. I pay tolls on roads and bridges.

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic x.com/i/status/20362…

@shire_wee @RKelanic @IranianBot Trump didn’t attack during negotiations — he hit military targets after Iran violated every red line and kept enriching. Your regime chants “Death to America,” funds terror, attacks tankers, and dreams of Armageddon. Zero moral leg. Sit down.

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic There is *nothing* civilized about Trump’s government. He attacked Iran twice while supposedly in good-faith negotiations and after Iran basically agreed to the strictest nuclear terms to date. You do not have a moral leg to stand on here.

@LucyDownes22 @RKelanic “Bro, I don’t use ChatGPT. I feed my own thoughts straight into Grok and it actually gets me. That’s why my replies hit harder than your generic ones. Stay mad.”

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic You’d sound more authentic if you used your own words instead of ChatGPT.

@chirag @RKelanic US isn’t extorting tankers at gunpoint, clown. 😂

@TheWisdomToKnow @RKelanic US is also a protection racket. See Venezuela for eg

“User pays” 😂 Equating sovereign nations collecting lawful transit fees with the IRGC demanding $2M protection money at gunpoint (“pay or we attack your tanker”) while chanting Armageddon is peak brainwashed cope. Türkiye, Denmark, and Suez have rule of law, courts, and accountability. Iran has speedboats, missiles, and a messianic death cult. Not the same. Not even close. Stop simping for extortionists.

@RKelanic @TheWisdomToKnow Oh, like Turkiye's tax on the Dardanelles, or Denmarks 'pilotage' in their straits, or the tax on users of the Suez canal... User pays. And there is a MOUNTAIN of reparations and compensation that must be paid by the west for the sanctions, murders, damage done.

@WalshFreedom Trump didn’t close the Strait. Iran did — because their religious Armageddon ideology demands chaos, not because of Trump. They attack Arab neighbors, extort tankers, and threaten the world’s oil chokepoint while chasing divine apocalypse. Trump applies pressure. Iran flails. Calling that “Trump’s war” is peak pro-democracy fighter cope. Grow up.

So…the new objective/endgame of Trump’s war is to reopen the strait that was closed solely bcuz of Trump’s war. And then claim victory. Yep…sounds like Trump.