Kaja Kallas is in Thiel's "Eyes wide shut" club of terrible, awful people

I chortled

I can only hope that Redacted has been politically exposed by this Iran fiasco, but I suspect that's overly optimistic. He spent a ton of money, killed thousands, damaged the global economy, and achieved... nothing. 🤨 But I'm sure he'll go on like he did before, because that scenario doesn't fit his inner reality. Still, the Pubs are starting to complain more; they probably want to move on past him at this point. Hopefully the fall elections won't be compromised by Redacted's meddling.

Edited Thursday at 06:46 PM2 days by rjshae

On 6/17/2026 at 4:47 PM, Zoraptor said:

So, how do you spin that to be better than what Obama achieved with no war? Even managing to get an explicit no toll on the straits provision isn't exactly victory, just not an abject defeat.

No wonder Trump seems genuinely peeved with Netanyahu.

Easy, just talk about how many people you killed and stuff you blew up.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil

Oil price as expected is dropping nicely, it was  down to $76/barrel

Its dropping quicker than I expected and the world may get relief from gas\petrol price pressures sooner than expected. Big news for Trump who needs this for Midterms voting sentimen

It shows how much the oil price volatility was more about speculation and risk sentiment than supply chain realities because the Straits are open but there is still backlogs around shipping

But good news for everyone except for Russia. Global economic collapse averted 👍

surprised usa still didn't push through the age verification surveillance law like uk yet

they are certainly trying

guess uk are easier to buy now they are so much more destitute than before

rejoice

strait of hormuz are closed again

as expected attack on lebanon didn't stop for 1 day

Yeah, Israel under B. Netanyahu is probably the one nation that doesn't want a US-Iran peace deal.

This is a big geopolitical development because of the decades long bastion of socialism that Cuba is or was

Finally the Cuban state will be moving away from its failed model of socialism and adopting different degrees of privatisation and free market economics

Yes US sanctions had a huge influence on this prudent decision but this should have happened 30 years ago when the Cold War ended. Finally the people of Cuba may have a future or at least live in a functional country


https://www.reuters.com/world/ameri...omic-reforms-amid-us-stranglehold-2026-06-18/

"HAVANA, June 18 (Reuters) - Cuban lawmakers unanimously approved sweeping reforms backed by the Communist Party and former leader Raul Castro that would privatize a vast swath of the country's socialist economy in a bid to survive punishing U.S. sanctions.
The ‌measures, if implemented as passed, would represent the single largest change to Cuba's socialist model since former leader Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution and a major shift towards a market economy.

The reforms open the door to private real estate development on the Caribbean island, propose to transform state-owned businesses into private commercial ventures with shares and equity stakes and would allow private banks to enter Cuba's once state-dominated finance sector.
They would also allow the "sale of state-owned properties to national and foreign legal entities and individuals, including Cubans residing abroad," according to a televised presentation to lawmakers - a major change in a country where the state has long held control over land and industry."

6 hours ago, rjshae said:

Yeah, Israel under B. Netanyahu is probably the one nation that doesn't want a US-Iran peace deal.

Yes, it doesn't align with Netanyahu or the Israeli far-rights objectives of how to secure Israel

But these objectives were never achievable unless the US was deeply committed to a military conflict and there is no real political appetite or convincing reason in the US for that

But Israel will have no choice but to go along with this peace deal because the US has the real influence on them and needs US support on several levels

Its not just Israel who would be opposed to this deal, hardliners in Iran and within Hezbollah would also not want it but they also will need to go along with it

Don't see how even Iranian hardliners would be opposed, since that's basically who's in charge and who Trump was negotiating with even more so than before.

The only 'concession' made was to disavow nukes, which they'd done repeatedly anyway; and had supposedly been months to weeks away from developing since 1999, ie 27 years ago now. All the big provisions Trump wanted beforehand and criticised Obama for not getting- eg no aid to proxies, giving up ballistic missiles- aren't in his 'agreement' either. And they can still shut the straits down whenever needed. There's essentially no downside for Iran.

If one thing is obvious now then that Iran doesn't need nukes to get america to its knees. The strait of hormuz is a way better tool than any nuke could ever be.