The All Things Political Topic - SNAFU edition

[Lexx]

15 hours ago, Gorth said:

Maybe he will fall out of a second floor window near the Russian embassy?

Only if it turns out his bank account is already empty.

Edited Wednesday at 10:01 PM by Lexx

[rjshae]

This could have just as easily be filed under Funny Stuff...

Mike Lindell files paperwork to run for Minnesota governor

I guess we'll see how well his weirdness fares against that 'seriously retarded' Tim Walz. 

[uuuhhii]

55 minutes ago, rjshae said:

This could have just as easily be filed under Funny Stuff...

Mike Lindell files paperwork to run for Minnesota governor

I guess we'll see how well his weirdness fares against that 'seriously retarded' Tim Walz. 

 

as expected

avoid bankruptcy by running for office will become popular option

[Malcador]

 

I guess SECREMF will survive, but this is comical from Cotton.  Apparently bags of cocaine are like missiles 

[Gromnir]

Trump’s attack on DEI may hurt college men, particularly White men

Nationwide, the number of women on campuses has surpassed the number of men for more than four decades, with nearly 40 percent more women than men enrolled in higher education, federal data shows.

Efforts to admit applicants at higher rates based on gender are legal under a loophole in federal antidiscrimination law, one that’s used to keep the genders balanced on campuses.

But the Trump administration has consistently included gender among the characteristics it says it does not want schools to consider for admissions or hiring, along with race, ethnicity, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity or religious associations.

HA! Good Fun!

[rjshae]

The less militant alternative to these types of ship attacks would be to force the ship to halt, then board, search for drugs, and question the crew for more information. That way there's at least physical evidence, although it's unclear whether that action is legal either. But at least it isn't murderous.

Imagine the uproar if North Korea was engaged on these types of ship attacks on the open ocean. What would happen if every country with a navy started following the Trump doctrine? This has to stop.

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, rjshae said:

The less militant alternative to these types of ship attacks would be to force the ship to halt, then board, search for drugs, and question the crew for more information. That way there's at least physical evidence, although it's unclear whether that action is legal either. But at least it isn't murderous.

it's legal(ish) and has been sop for years. is US fed law as well as UNCLOS and specific international agreements which give (enough) legal justification for drug inspections o' vessels on the high seas such that complaints o' lack o' jurisdiction has failed as a defense o' drug traffickers in both US and international courts time and again. 

also,

...

The administration's lethal approach marks a huge shift from the traditional maritime interdictions the U.S. has long done.

Those operations involve the U.S. Coast Guard intercepting a drug boat at sea, boarding the vessel, seizing the narcotics, arresting the crew and bringing them back to the U.S. to face prosecution.

The U.S. Coast Guard works off information gathered from U.S. law enforcement and intelligence community sources. The U.S. military, meanwhile, has a hand in detection, monitoring and coordination.

"We used to call it a self-licking ice cream cone," said one former FBI official who worked transnational crime and maritime interdictions. "You stop a boat, you get the bad guys, you use the leverage of prosecuting them to turn them into cooperators."

Investigators would use those cooperators to intercept more drug boats, arrest more low-level traffickers, leverage some of them into cooperators to get more intelligence. This way, over time, the former FBI official said, investigators have been able to work their way up to cartel leadership.

Even when the people detained on a boat didn't have information that helped in a prosecution, they often had tidbits that helped illuminate the cartel network, which American officials then use for intelligence purposes.

"Forgetting the philosophy of whether killing people is right or wrong, when you kill them you can't talk to them. When you grab them, you can," one former senior DOJ official said.

The information that leads to an interdiction comes from human sources as well as what's known as signals intelligence, or electronic surveillance. Current and former officials said in interviews that that information is generally accurate and reliable.

It allows the Coast Guard, for example, to put a cutter at a precise location of a drug boat in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, which is roughly the size of the continental United States.

The current and former officials said the intelligence isn't always 100% accurate. Sometimes the vessel the Coast Guard intercepts is a resupply boat carrying food and fuel for the traffickers, not the actual drugs.

Still, the intelligence that allows the Coast Guard to be in the right place is often built upon a piece of information provided by a human source, which then allows the U.S. government to put its vast electronic spying powers to good use.

These officials said blowing up boats instead of interdicting them will have a compound effect over time on the quality of intelligence.

With the lethal strikes, the U.S. is no longer gathering phones and other electronics off of crew arrested on the high seas, nor is the U.S. questioning the low-level drug runners about who and what they know about the broader trafficking network.

"You need something to tell you where to look," the former DOJ official said. "If you're killing all these people, you just dried up the human intelligence."

...

again, the coast guard has been stopping, searching and questioning those on the suspected drug boats for many years, typical with the cooperation o' south american, caribbean and european nations, 'cause particular in the case o' venezuelan drugs (cocaine) the drugs is more likely bound to end up in caribbean and euro nations than the US. often the drug boats is destroyed by the coast guard, but only after the people and drugs is removed from the vessels. 

in spite o' the fact the boats is being stopped often many thousands o' miles remote from the US, the drug interdictions has ordinary been the task o' the coast guard, although the overall efficacy o' the operations has been... suspect.

...

As the intelligence dwindles, the U.S. government's understanding of the cartels, their money laundering networks, supply chains and business strategies will start to go dark.

In the past, the OCDETF-led interdiction model intercepted around 4% to 6% of known maritime cocaine shipments annually on non-commercial vessels. In fiscal year 2023, for example, the rate was 3.71%, according to a Department of Homeland Security watchdog report from February.

This fall, the Trump administration shuttered OCDETF, and transferred its cases to new Homeland Security Task Forces jointly run by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations.

For those who spent years working on combating drug cartels, there's deep skepticism that the Trump administration's new policy of military strikes will be prevent more drugs from reaching America.

"All this strategy is doing is killing people and the same amount of drugs is getting into the U.S.," the former senior DOJ official said. "You didn't save anybody or increase the number of people you're saving in the U.S. It's extraordinarily shortsighted and I don't think it gets you the goal you want."

...

the recent shift in policy and practice appears on its face to be performative. at least if there were some kinda compelling argument or evidence that blowing up drug boats headed for trinidad and tobago is saving american lives, you could see a rationale for engaging in lethal interdictions, but that ain't the case.

recall, the US sent people to cecot w/o due process. explanation for cecot efforts were that tren de aragua is not just a terrorist organization, but is an active para-military group active involved in the downfall o' the US. if trump had been successful, he coulda' sent anybody he disliked to cecot or someplace similar, 'cause sans due process, explanations and justifications is replaced with faith in the administration. 

the boat strikes is an effort to do something similar to cecot and is arguable worse 'cause as bad as cecot is, summary executions means there is no way to correct mistakes. trump doesn't provide proof before the maritime murders take place and the justification for the killings is that narco terrorists is involved in what amounts to military actions directed at the US. the double-tap clap trap is a kinda red herring 'cause it ignores the complete lack o' legitimacy o' the boat strikes. am bothered by the focus on the double-tap accusations because doing so means you are already pretending as if the people being murdered on suspected drug boats is analogous to enemy sailors who is fighting a war with the US, a claim which is transparent false and... stoopid. 

if rando fisherman working for drug cartels in venezuela may be subject to summary executions 'cause drugs are bad and americans die because of drugs, then try and imagine who else and where else trump could do murder w/o needing proof o' any kinda crime. 

the only thing slowing down the administration's authoritarian efforts is their utter incompetence... a fact which is not near as reassuring as we would hope.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited 40 minutes ago by Gromnir